Family Life Winners Family Life Winners

What would compel all of America’s founding fathers to risk their lives, their families and homes, and their wealth to establish the birth of a new nation? Was it new wealth, ambition, thirst for power or just a pioneering spirit? They provided the answer in their writings. It was the Hand of Yahweh.

After that fateful vote, it is recorded there were some who wept and others who bowed themselves in prayer at the magnitude of what they had just done. One month after their declaration of independence, Samuel Adams, one of the chief architects, said this:” We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and… from the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come.” ( An address given in Philadelphia on Aug. 1st, 1776)

He basically was saying there was only one king that man should bow and submit to and it was our Lord and Savior Yeshua. These men risked everything to call for the birth of a nation of people to take a stand against the rule of the earthly king in Great Britain and to dedicate this nation to the rule of our Heavenly King. Their acts were of divine inspiration and obedience.

John Hancock, who famously signed the document in huge letters, declared his trust and reliance on God for America’s protection and his own when he wrote: “Let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the great Lord of the Universe…. Let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of Him who raises up and puts down the empires and kingdoms of the earth as He pleases.”

We know that their official declaration and the following American Revolution was not just based upon the acts and consensus of a group of  power-hungry deranged men. Incidents and events during the next 6 years of battling revealed the Lord’s hand of providence and victories upon this new America as England finally relented.

The wording of America’s declaration of freedom was debated long in the Continental Congress and they wanted the known world to know who they were calling out to and who they were relying on by “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World, for the rectitude of our intentions,” as well as the words “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”

Let’s make sure that those of us who are citizens of America and celebrate he birth of our  nation, remember that Yah’s guiding and empowering Hand was at the center of this amazing occurrence.

John Adams wrote this in a letter to his wife Abigail right after the historic vote: “It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty … from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

In Yahweh we trust!

Before anyone gets their religious feathers all ruffled, we are not talking about any kind of demonic inspired astrology stuff here. There are 12 new moons every year and we are saying  that they can be some amazing times of celebration, blessing, expectation and renewal. There is Biblical precedence for this statement.

Please don’t overlook this. The simple fact that Elohim created the moon and its rotational time-frame gives it much significance. We see this in Ps. 19:1 that “the heavens declare the glory of Yahweh…” and in Ps. 8:3 “the moon and the stars which You have ordained…”

Next, we are going to look at the 2nd least read book of the Bible which is Numbers (the first being Leviticus). Num. 10:10 says that “In the day of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your offerings…”

Sounds like the Lord was indicating these were to be special times, times to be set apart by us, holding a special significance in our hearts. And these truths we are talking about here should not seem so foreign. We have been planning major parties on the Roman calendar New Year’s Day for  long time. Yahweh has His own New Year’s called Rosh Hashanah (which is also a new moon celebration) which is found in the Biblical Hebrew calendar.

This is just for Jewish people and the Old Testament doesn’t apply to Christians some may say. We say that it would be very foolish to dismiss the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit speaking through Isaiah in chapter 66:23, where He says, “And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, ALL flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the Lord”.

So, who’s ready to toss out the Sabbath and the 10 commandments too?

Maybe the real question is how does all this relate to the original idea that participating in the new moon celebrations opens up new opportunities for blessing, expectation for Yah’s goodness, and renewal of our souls?

It really comes down to responding to an invitation from our Heavenly Father to join with Him in celebration and aligning ourselves with His perfect timing. We’ve always known to align ourselves with His Word, His will, His Son, and Holy Spirit. Aligning ourselves with His time, will only enable us to more fully stay connected with Him. When we do that, watch out because His blessings will be coming to overtake us.

In our next nugget of spiritual revelation, we will look at the firstfruits aspect of celebrating the new moons which are called Rosh Chodesh which means “Head of the Month”.

There is such a thing as compounding interest whereby an amount of money grows by the interest and then the new interest takes into account the previous amounts already added. The basic idea is the initial amount increases or compounds quickly. As we have talked about moving from faith to faith (Romans 1:17) as a growing maturing principle of our journey as ambassadors for Christ, we want to add the concept of compounding faith.

While the growing of our faith is a rather internal process, and we are individually responsible for applying our faith, Paul talks about our faith being added to other people’s faith. Romans 1:12 says: “that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

This is a huge arsenal in our battle against the things of this world and our common enemy. There is so much in today’s society that moves us towards  isolation and self-sufficiency. Lions looks to separate their prey from the pack because they know there is weakness in isolation.

That is why it is vital for us not to avoid gathering with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and to join our faith together with others to see mighty things accomplished for the Kingdom of Yahweh.

When we connect by phone or text or meet with one another, we should always take advantage of this chance to bring our faith in unity as a powerful weapon to glorify the Lord and enjoy the blessing and profiting that comes with it. This applies to engaging in warfare with the enemy and also in calling forth our destinies in Christ, our provision, and our spiritual growth.

Remember, there is a time to be in your prayer closet, but make sure to put compounding faith into action as often as possible with your church family.

We trust that you have never read or heard about a “breathing testimony” before? This will now be something that can be removed from that famous bucket-list of so many people. Ha-ha!

I heard someone a while ago talking about ways to deal with stress and the point of the talk was about breathing exercises. I had heard about this before and was ready to take a quick nap in the back of the room.

The Holy Spirit had other plans and told me to pay attention. Since breathing is called an autonomous function, we don’t spend much time thinking about it. When we get into stressful situations, our breathing generally becomes more shallow and rapid.

So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that the vast majority of us spend a lot of time in relatively stressful situations. Even watching the evening news in the comfort of your home can make us rather anxious. When this happens, we end up going through the day with a lowered amount of oxygen getting into our blood and into our brains. Oh, so that’s why we say and do more stupid things when we are under pressure and stressed out.

As I started to listen to the speaker explaining this, I began to get more excited because my job comes chock full of stressful situations since working at a hospital. The suggestion given was to regularly spend some time focusing on your breathing.

The thought came to me that while focusing on my breathing while dealing with stressful situations, it can also be a chance to thank the Lord for being alive and for the amazing process of breathing that we all overlook.

I started doing this and my stress signals began to get smaller and my thankfulness for Yeshua’s love and goodness became greater. I didn’t check my oxygen levels but I bet they were higher. I was able to view those stressful situations with much more confidence and more positive speaking. I was able to better avoid that “whining and complaining” thing we tend to do when the going gets rough.

This takes no skill whatsoever, but you will need to give yourselves a reminder to do it, especially when your boss or spouse are not keeping your strong points in mind.

Yeshua had a mission on the earth, part of which was to destroy the works of the enemy. (1John 3:8) He shared that mission with His disciples – He “gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases.” (Luke 9: 1) He delegated His authority to accomplish His mission then and has delegated it to us, His current batch of disciples.

As co-heirs with Christ, as His ambassadors now in this earth, we have the same anointing, the same authority to continue His mission. We must embrace this truth and resist the work of the enemy as we encounter it around us. Why in the world would Yeshua not include us in this work?

There is much sickness and demonic oppression going on around us and it is increasing because the Church is not exercising the authority that Christ gave us. We need to believe just like the disciples needed to believe that we have “healing hands” and we need to start using them.

Does not mean that every sick person that we touch is going to be miraculously healed on the spot? Is that how it was for the disciples? There is one recorded incident in Matt 17 whereby a father complains that the disciples could not help his son.

We can develop this healing anointing but we have to exercise the authority we have been given. We do this by responding to people who are ill by laying our hands on them and believing the healing grace of Yeshua is being released to make them whole.

Our faith and authority can’t grow if we don’t step out. We don’t need to make a big production out of it but we always want to seek the direction of the Holy Spirit. It comes down to our faith and the faith of the recipient to receive (“…believe you receive…” Mark 11:24)

Let’s remember the next time and the times after that when we have the chance to place our hand on someone’s shoulder or arm or give a hug or even shake hands, we are calling upon the authority Yeshua has given us to see healing and shalom change lives.

we can have authority bu t not do anything with it

For those of you who can do 50 push-ups, please raise you hand. How about 30? How about 10? How about 5? Come on now! Have you never heard that Paul preached to Timothy in the New Testament on push up profits?

We’ll have to do a survey of the Body of Christ at some point and see what percentage of time and effort is put towards building the spirit, building the soul, and building the body. We would be willing to guess the figures would come out something like this: spirit – 20%, soul – 70%, and body – 10%. And the scary part about that is the 70% effort for our souls is probably a lot of entertainment and pity parties. Ouch!

Sorry, let’s back to Paul and Timothy. Paul doesn’t mention push-ups exactly, so you don’t have send us a warning calling us heretics, but he does say in 1Tim. 4:8 “Bodily exercise profits a little…” Paul is acknowledging that there is some profit in physical exercise because he is comparing it to the profit that comes from the pursuit of godliness or being like God.

That can’t be right because Yeshua never mentioned the value of bodily exercise. Ever heard that kind of reasoning before? Christ never mentioned it because exercise like walking and lifting and farming was a part of your everyday lives back then. Getting somewhere involved either walking or riding a horse, and if you have ever rode a horse,  you know it’s exercise. Even having and working a small backyard garden takes a lot of bodily effort.

Let’s not ignore putting some effort into keeping our bodies fit. There are so any benefits to doing this. Keep it simple to something like walking in your neighborhood or doing popcorn stretches in your living room – take it easy on the butter though.

A healthy body is able to fight off illness better and that means less down time and more time to devote to those things you love and are called to.

Looking into a microscope for the first time opened up a whole new world for us, a world that we could only have imagined before this first glimpse. This microscopic world was very much alive and impacting our lives even before we took that first look. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 tells us the importance of seeing beyond our light afflictions and recognizing a whole new world of Yah’s glory in operation.

2 Cor. 4:17-18 “For our light affliction is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but the things which are unseen…”

This is a spiritual realm where we are being renewed daily and our glory account is being built up. While there is so much for our physical senses to take in, there is even much more going on in the spirit realm. We must not lose sight of this and take the time to focus our attention away from the things that are temporary and gaze upon those things that are working eternally in us.

Our physical existence is limited but our spiritual existence is boundless, and the more we get in touch with this truth, the more we will rise above our challenges and experience the unspeakable joy and victories that are ours in Christ. If we made a commitment to Christ and His Lordship, then we have also committed to being His ambassadors. (2 Cor 5:20)

So, how do we get better in touch with this truth? We have to balance out that time we are focused on our worldly responsibilities with the time we are spending in His heavenly presence. There is much to enjoy in this world but sadly the world will only pull us down. We must counter these destructive influences with the glory of our Savior and develop our spiritual focus of seeing beyond into those things “unseen”.

Please join us on this journey of becoming effective Glory Ambassadors for Christ, or renew your commitment if you have already started.

Click here: https://familylifewinners.com/glory-ambassadors-christ

Everybody knows the huge role our eyes play in our quality of life and in our enjoyment of life. There is also much talk about having spiritual eyes that enable us to see things of the Spirit. Yeshua said that the eye is the lamp of the body (light of our bodies) and our eyes play a big role in the condition of our souls. (Matt. 6: 22-23)

What role is that exactly? What we allow our eyes to focus on and receive leaves an impression on our thoughts and attitudes and can even trigger strong emotions. Basically, the things that we look at we will change our perspective on our circumstances and even about ourselves.

How we view ourselves and the events we  deal with act as a filter on our ability or inability to receive what our Heavenly Father has made available to us. There are some super-charged images (a tragic accident or crime) that can leave a lasting impact on our lives with just 1 look, while a steady diet of peaceful or conflicted images (mountain scenes or angry faces) will create changes in our values or expectations in life.

As a result, can we radically conclude that we should be very careful about what we allow our eyes to stay focused? Yes indeed, because what we allow our eyes to dwell on will impact our spiritual growth. It will do this because what we allow our eyes to look at effect our values, our thoughts, our feelings, even our hopes and dreams and our capacity to believe.

While the example of what Jacob did in Genesis 30 to create striped and spotted livestock does not have a direct application to us walking around with spiritual stripes or spots, we believe it effectively illustrates the principle that we are talking about here.

It would be very wise for us to be sensitive and discerning to the things we gaze upon and  only dwell and look upon on those things that are true and noble and just… ( Phil 4:8)

We all need partners as we take on the quest of becoming effective ministers for the kingdom of God. Our witness to the rest of the world is a valuable thing, especially in this age of social media and political correctness. We can’t take the “monk” attitude and keep our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ at arm’s length or greater.

As we accept the honor and challenge of being glory ambassadors for Christ, we also need to be positioned to give and receive encouragement from people we trust. We’ve heard it described as a pitcher that is being poured out and then getting replenished so that the process can continue and expand.

Do you have an encouraging partner that is available for you? If not, please take the time to ask the Lord to open those doors for you. This arrangement can also be an excellent opportunity for marital couples to join together for spiritual growth and for improved communication and strengthening for their marriage.

Today’s culture puts a huge emphasis on independence which results in a lot of people becoming isolated. While women may experience this to some degree, men generally are at much more risk to fall into this trap of isolation. Please pardon us for the using some gender identity labels here. Not really!

Let’s place some time in our schedules to pursue some “encouraging partner” possibilities if we don’t have one, or reach out to our “encouragers” to invite them for on-going contacts.