When the usher noticed a man stretched across three seats in the movie theater, he walked over and whispered "Sorry sir, but you are allowed only one seat." The man moaned but didn't budge. "Sir," the usher said more loudly, "if you don't move, I'll have to call the manager." The man moaned again but stayed where he was. The usher left and returned with the manager, who, after several attempts at dislodging the fellow, called the police. The cop looked at the reclining man and said, "All right, what's your name, joker?" "Joe", he mumbled. "And where are you from, Joe?" Joe responds painfully, "The balcony!"
Things aren't always as they appear. Have you ever been misjudged by appearances? I have. You can be doing everything right and honorably and someone will walk onto the scene in the middle or end of your "This is My Life episode" and view it from their incomplete perspective. Sometimes I feel like my 6 Word Memoir would be called, "A Cross-Stitched Life Viewed From The Underside". Don't you sometimes feel the same way? Like all the public can see is all the knots and mistakes, but rarely the tapestry God is stitching together for good? Probably my favorite love quote is from 1st Corinthians: "Love always believes the best". Today, you and I will have several opportunities to judge a scene and the actors in it. Just remember, we don't know the whole story. We only know a part. And the part we know is just a short clip from the entire movie.
I'm praying over you right now that you will keep a discerning spirit about you and use wisdom as you speak into and about others lives; think the best, not the worst, about every person today. You never know - you may be able to rescue someone who has just "fallen from the balcony".
Love Never Fails, Leeanna Trosclair Porter
Forgiveness does not mean you can have hope that one day all the past will be gone or that the terrible thing done to you will never have happened. That's Hollywood, not reality. It happened. That's a fact that cannot be undone no matter how much time passes you by. Bitterness and unforgiveness don't have the power to change your past painful experiences for the better. Forgiveness is realizing that God alone earned the right to blot out sin and change your future. Lay down your right to be right. What good purpose does that serve you or anyone you love? Instead of saying, "I can't forgive him", say the truth instead: "I choose to be bitter. I choose to remain unforgiven for my own sin". Why would I choose to do that? Because I believe the lie that holding unforgiveness somehow only hurts my offender and not me. I am self deceived. Put out of your life all these things: bad feelings about other people, anger, temper, loud talk, bad talk which hurts other people, and bad feelings which hurt other people. You must be kind to each other. Think of the other person. Forgive other people just as God forgave you because of Christ’s death on the cross. Your heavenly Father will forgive you if you forgive those who sin against you; but if you refuse to forgive them, he will not forgive you. Unforgiveness won't determine their future with Christ but it will determine yours. JESUS said our Father will forgive us "just as" we have forgiven others. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even when we have rebelled against him. He is faithful and just to forgive us when we sin. Confess your sin of unforgiveness and he will forgive you and remember your sin no more.
(Eph 4:31-32; Matt 6:13-15)
I'm praying for you right now and I hear God singing over you His songs of deliverance.
❤️Love Never FAILS, Leeanna Trosclair Porter
I often think how undeserving I am of the precious blood of Jesus. I think of the woman caught in adultery and how every person encircling her had a stone in his hand ready to condemn her...except Jesus: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone", He said. They all dropped their weapon and walked away- beginning with the oldest to the youngest. The longer I live the more aware I am of how much Jesus paid on the cross for me: More than i deserve. The truth is, He died for me over 2000 years before I committed even one of
the sins credited to my account. He wrote my name in the Lamb's Book of Life, before the foundation of the earth. He knew all I would ever do to offend God and how many times I would ask
Him to forgive me. He knew it all and yet still chose me. And then, he chose to keep his nail-scarred hands along with his perfect, resurrected body, so He would remember what
he did for me, on the cross, on the very day I would ask him forgiveness, for the 490th time. He would look at his hands and remember and say, "I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, how could I ever forget about you?" And, "Though your mother and father might forsake you, I Will never forsake you". Why? Because my debt was
PAID in full and it was not dependent on my works or my good behaviour or my trying harder but based solely on God's Grace and the work Jesus did alone on that cross. For I was dead in my trespasses and sins and it pleased Him to raise me up from the dead and put His life in me. If I could be good enough to earn his forgiveness, then I could brag. But in God's economy, only He gets to brag. For salvation is not by works, lest anyone should boast. One day there will be many who will say, Lord, Lord, I did this and that
In your name! And He will say depart from Me for I NEVER knew you. Who did He never know? The one who tried to make it to the Father based on their own good works and merit and not totally in the work of Christ alone. Yes, I'm humbled at the scope and length and width and breath and depth of his love. Nothing I have can compare with Him.
I just heard a good teaching and wanted to share the parts I believe apply to those who have been called to work Plexus as a business. When I first began taking Plexus I said I would never "work" this as a business. I had no heart for it nor was I looking for a job. I was already investing 30-50 hours a week in Breakthrough Ministries, teaching and writing Bible studies, discipling women and investing in my marriage, children and grandchildren. I had no margin in my schedule for a "real job". Well, as I have learned through hard knocks in this walk with God, never tell God you won't do something. When Brandy asked me, "Leeanna, didn't you say Plexus was an answer to your prayers? What if Plexus is an answer to your friends prayers too? Wouldn't you want to share it if so?" So the answer was, "Yes". I began to share with my FB friends and with my friends in person and all over the USA. Guess what happened? All of a sudden I realized I had a "real job"! In fact, I very timidly told my husband "I am SO sorry, but I think I have a business and I didn't mean for it to happen!" He laughed! And eventually with the downturn in the oil and gas economy, he began to tell me with a smile, "Work it, Baby!"
By God's grace, He's given me a passion for this "work". I now have a team of
Hundreds, an amazing full time income and still have been able to invest 30-50 hours a week in ministry!
This brings me to the teaching I heard today that made me think of
you! Faith Works. God will give us an idea, a direction, a warning, an opportunity BUT He will never work that idea FOR us. He will work within us and He will inspire us but He will never do the work FOR us. It's our job to work out that idea. Faith without works is dead or useless or unfruitful. Just like when Noah built the Ark. God told Noah to build the Ark. God did not build the Ark FOR Noah. Noah built as the people around him laughed and mocked him. For about 100 years, Noah built as people mocked. They had never seen a drop of rain so they didn't understand his "foolishness" in building a place of future refuge. Have you been falsely seen as a fool? What has God given YOU the faith to build? Stop asking GOD to build it for you! He has given you the faith and the tools and the grace to build it, but
please don't expect Him to do it for you. If God gave you the inspiration, then He has also given you everything you need to finish the work. Are people mocking you as you build? You will not be put to shame! Keep building. Keep working. God is going to send the "rain". One day you will look back and see the safety God created for you and your family because you didn't give up and you didn't give in to peer pressure or naysayers or mockers. Keep you eyes on Christ. Keep your eyes on the prize! Build what God has told you to build and stop listening to those who don't understand and who don't follow you. Stop looking to the right or the left and run your own race. Noah survived the flood with only his wife, three sons and their wives. That's it. The rest who mocked and ignored Noah's faith and work and preaching,
perished. Stay focused. Build your "Ark". Be blessed! I am cheering you on! Love Never Fails, Leeanna.
I really love God's Word. It's always on time. In reading Mark 6 this morning about the miracle of the multiplication of the bread and fish to feed 5000, I am reminded that the miracle itself really wasn't the end goal in mind. The end goal was trusting God in the dark place before the miracle. Just after the miracle of the bread and fish, these same disciples faced another dark place - Jesus sent his disciples into a boat to cross to the other side, with a lesson to learn. NOTE: JESUS SENT THEM THERE. As they went, they faced dangerously high winds on the lake. They were troubled and fearful because the wind was against them and in all their furious rowing, they were tirelessly going NO where fast. Then they saw Jesus walking on the sea towards them. But instead of recognising him for who He is, they shrieked with terror thinking he was a ghost. Jesus called to them, "Take heart, I AM! Stop being alarmed and afraid!" When Jesus got into the boat with them the wind ceased.
The Word says the disciples were exceedingly astonished at this 2nd miracle in a row, BECAUSE they failed to consider or understand the teaching and meaning of the miracle of the bread. IN FACT, their hearts had grown callous and had become dull and they had lost the power of understanding.
In all our dark places and in all our circumstances that beg for God to act, the end is not the miracle. The end is not the healing. The end is not the check in the mail or the sudden turn of a prodigal. The end is what we unlearn about I AM in the dark places. God is always aware of our circumstances.
Mark 6 says JESUS sent the disciples ahead of Him into the boat and He could see their troubled situation from the hills and the land he was praying on. When He saw they were troubled, He came to them but AS THOUGH HE WAS GOING TO PASS THEM BY. How many times have I knew that I knew that God could see my clouded circumstances but it seemed as though He was just going to pass me by without a look? Jesus said in Mark 6:52 that the reason for my fear in those places is because my heart has a tendency to grow calloused and I lose my power of understanding. I forget the prior miracles of the multiplication of the bread--All the times He has miraculously fed me.
I love Oswald Chambers' insight into this passage:
"What we call the process, God calls the end....God is not working toward a particular finish; His end is the process--that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right, because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the PROCESS not the end, that is glorifying to God....unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact, full in the face without damaging God's character, we do not yet know Him....God's end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life right now."
Seeing is not believing. Just because I see something doesn't mean I have faith. I saw a contrast in John 2 today that I hadn't noticed before. When Jesus drove the money changers out of the house of God the religious Jews asked Jesus, "What sign, miracle, token, indication can you give us as EVIDENCE, that YOU have authority and are commissioned to act in this way?" Jesus said, "Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up again!" (Speaking of his own body). It wasn't until Jesus was crucified and then resurrected on the 3rd day, that his disciples remembered what he had told the Jews and THEN "they believed and trusted and relied on the Scripture and the Word (message) Jesus had spoken! Now that they "saw" they "believed". But is that faith? Right after this, during the Passover Feast (perfectly set stage I might add!) MANY BELIEVED in His name (identified themselves with His party), AFTER seeing his signs (wonders, miracles) which He was doing. BUT JESUS (for his part) did not trust himself to them because He knew all men; and He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man (needed no evidence from anyone about men) for He Himself knew what was in human nature (He could read men's hearts) (see 1 Sam 16:7). So what is the point? As I slowed down and really prayerfully looked at this passage again, I see that signs and wonders and miracles are amazing and awesome BUT they should not be why I believe. I should believe just because HE SAID IT. Even the blind can see! Crosby, that dear saint of the last century who wrote "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!" was blind from her earliest babyhood as a result of an accident. When she was only eight years old she wrote this little rhyme,
Oh, what a happy child I am,
Although I can not see.
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't.
To weep and sigh
Because I'm blind,
I cannot and I won't!
She lived to be over 90, and that beautiful, rejoicing spirit characterized her all her days.
Today it's my intention to believe what I cannot see. To trust what is promised but not yet visible. To love and obey and believe without any sign at all. Love Never Fails, Leeanna
We've heard a lot about grace lately. It's been a big buzz for some time, in fact. But when YOU think of grace, what comes to mind??
THE WAY I VIEW GRACE is by looking back at my childhood. When I was a little girl I used to like to stand on top of an old rusty oil barrel in my daddy's back yard and balance on it. But the most fun was to walk on top of it and make it roll. My friend Cookie and I had a ton of fun practicing our barrel walking lol. But guess what?! What we thought was just fun, became off limits one day. My stepmom found out what we were doing and told us we had to stop. She was concerned we would get hurt. Of course being children, we knew nothing about those kind of possibilities. I was usually pretty obedient. But that rule seemed senseless to us and therefore, too tempting not to break. So we did. Cookie would lay on the grass looking under the house to keep a look out for "Ms Agnes", while I rolled to my heart's content. And then I would take my turn being the scout while Cookie had her turn at being disobedient. We knew what we were doing was wrong but Oh what fun! It was worth the risk! Until we were busted. Somehow, Cookie lost her guard and my stepmom got out of the house without her noticing, and caught us!!! The disappointment on my stepmom's face was more crushing to me than my sin. All of a sudden, I became repentant! Repentance doesn't mean "I'm sorry I got caught". Repentance means a complete change of thinking that results in changed behaviour! I never walked that barrel again. No one had to make me. It was internal. That love, not fear, kept me from committing that particular sin again. I don't remember being punished for that disobedience that day--but I surely deserved it and even EXPECTED it (namely kneeling on rice, because that was how us children were disciplined in south Louisiana in those days). Her disappointment in me was enough. She showed me grace I didn't deserve. Her grace didn't become an excuse for me to disobey again. Her grace kept me from the desire to do it again. In the same way, I often think of God's amazing grace. I know the right thing to do and yet I don't always do it. I deserve God's wrath; we all do, after all, we are guilty. But Christ took my punishment. The chastisement of MY sin was upon HIM. HE carried ALL my guilt and shame! Does that make me want to sneak around and do what I know is wrong, hoping not to get caught by God? Oh my no! When my sin is brought to my awareness, I'm completely humbled by His grace that I won't ever get what I truly deserve because of placing my trust in Christ Jesus alone and His work on that cross for my sin, for me! Grace and His love are what control me; not fear. There is power in grace that fear knows nothing of. I'm forever grateful to know God's gift of grace and the power of His perfect love.
GRACE ISN'T AN EXCUSE TO GET OUT OF YOUR SIN. IT'S THE POWER TO GET OUT OF IT.