Fixed Eyes - Summer Break pt. 10

Sep 19

There are 5 main points that will help us travel at a pace that we can embrace and incorporate into our everyday lives. They are very basic, but powerful. And they are building blocks for the foundation of a strong, healthy life. These 5 baby steps forward will lead you to a path filled with peace, joy, contentment, satisfaction, rest and calm.

Diana’s Notes

Welcome to the almost last episode of our summer series on Heartfelt Conversations with Diana!

During this Summer Series, we have been chatting about shifting our focus off of grumbling, complaining, controlling, Lack of Trust in God - and learn to Trust God and gain power over our emotions and feelings and exchange them for peace, joy, and being fully satisfied. Having a life that satisfies. Being comfortable in our own skin, while learning to be more like Jesus on our own personal journey.

As we wrap up, there are 5 main points that I believe will help us travel at a pace that we can embrace and incorporate into our every- day- lives. They are very basic, but powerful. And they are the building blocks for the foundation that I have been learning to pour into my own life. I wouldn’t share them, if I did not personally know the enormous effect and powerful impact that these 5 baby steps forward - have led me to. A path filled with peace, joy, contentment, satisfaction, rest and calm.

The 5 main points we will be discussing in the next 2 episodes as we wrap up Summer are:

Fix Your Eyes On Jesus
Develop Self-Discipline
Trust God Period. Jesus trusted Himself and everything to His Father - Sought Him in prayer often
Rest And Relax
Have Fun. Enjoy Life

Fix our eyes on Jesus - Jesus is Gentle and Easy. He wants us to give Him the hard stuff.

In Matthew 11: 28 through verse 30 Jesus tells us to lean on Him, He wants to take the burdens the weariness of the day, the things that seem to rest on our shoulders, the weight of our world and the people we care about, take all of that, the heavy - hard stuff and give it to Him. He is gentle. He promises to be easy on us.

Jesus tells us in Matthew - “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and Learn Of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For MY yoke is easy and My burden is light. “

Learn Of Him, let Him teach you how.

That is what I had to do, LET HIM teach me - let go, let God. AND…..

That was the very specific thing that I needed, the “word” that spoke to my heart, that gave me the life-vest I needed at the time to stay above water. I needed GENTLE in my life. All I had known was harsh, violent, heavy and hard to bear hurts and wounds and betrayals and disappointments. I just needed something - someone - gentle, easy, soft. So I stepped out in absolute faith that if Jesus promised His gentleness in exchange for Learning of Him, then I was in.

I needed it to be true and real and to bring some rest for my soul.

I spent time treking my way out of the wilderness with Jesus, following Him as my Shepherd over rough, hard terrain that some days I wanted to stop and like the Israelites, I wanted to go back to Egypt. I wanted to give up and stay in the misery I had always known because it was safe, it was easy to wake up every day and stay focused on licking my wounds, but if I really wanted to go home - to be in that space or place that felt safe. Felt right and a place I could rest. If I really wanted to be back on the safe path that would lead me to home. To shelter and rest and comfort, then I was going to have to stay close and cling tightly to my Shepherds garments.

And I did, actually I still do because I love the companionship we have developed and the trust and bond that has developed because I had to cling so tightly. When you are rescued from predators, from prisons and captures and chains and torture and violence and absolute heartbreak and agonizing pain - and you have been following this person so intensely through the enemy territory, that when you finally reach safety, and you don’t have to cling so tight; you still know you will never be as safe or feel as safe without this person with you. I am not living in fear or terror or anger or bitterness or any of the chains and prisons that once kept me wandering around lost anymore. I have no desire to ever get lost again - In fact, I refuse. I stick close to My Shepherd and His Spirit leads me and lights the path for my feet to follow and I don’t have to worry about all the little problems along the way. I’ve learned to Cast it onto Jesus and Learn of Him.

Backing up to what we have been talking about in Exodus, the Israelites were grumbling and complaining against God and Moses because they did not like the uncomfortable conditions that the journey to Freedom can bring. We struggle with Fixing our eyes on Jesus. We struggle with believing He is real and not folklore, or even if He was real, there is no way He was God, Who came into this world, earth, as a man - Jesus - God and Man. Perfect. Holy. It is impossible to believe with sense and reason. It requires faith. But even if we had seen Jesus with our own eyes, would we have believed in Him then??

The Israelites witnessed God’s miracles first hand and yet, they still hardened their hearts against God and Moses. The Israelites struggled with fixing their eyes on God as He led them through the wilderness. A cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. They could physically see God at work, leading. But even though they knew it was God. Sovereign God. They complained. It can be more natural to complain than to be grateful when we become conditioned by this world’s viewpoint, or we are more comfortable in the misery and chains we have become accustomed to because at least we know we will be fed 3 square meals a day. But when we change our perspective- shift our thinking off of what we have always done, always known - and learn to line it up with God’s Word no matter what, we eventually will find ourselves back on the right path.

But once again, Israel found herself doubting God. Listen to this account of God’s goodness, faithfulness, mercy, forgiveness and tenderness toward His children even when they rebelled against Him. They were stubborn, and their pride and bad attitude caused division in their hearts against God and Moses. I’m reading a few books ahead from Exodus and into the Old Testament book Nehemiah. Beginning in chapter 9, verse 9 and reading through verse 17 in the New Living Translation.

READ

9“You saw the misery of our ancestors in Egypt, and you heard their cries from beside the Red Sea.c 10You displayed miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, his officials, and all his people, for you knew how arrogantly they were treating our ancestors. You have a glorious reputation that has never been forgotten. 11You divided the sea for your people so they could walk through on dry land! And then you hurled their enemies into the depths of the sea. They sank like stones beneath the mighty waters. 12You led our ancestors by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night so that they could find their way.

13“You came down at Mount Sinai and spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and instructions that were just, and decrees and commands that were good. 14You instructed them concerning your holy Sabbath. And you commanded them, through Moses your servant, to obey all your commands, decrees, and instructions.

15“You gave them bread from heaven when they were hungry and water from the rock when they were thirsty. You commanded them to go and take possession of the land you had sworn to give them.

16“But our ancestors were proud and stubborn, and they paid no attention to your commands. 17They refused to obey and did not remember the miracles you had done for them. Instead, they became stubborn and appointed a leader to take them back to their slavery in Egypt but you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love. You did not abandon them,

Even when we are plain jerks to God, our Creator - I mean - seriously ponder about that for a minute, think about it. How much pride do we need to be filled up with to even begin to think we can ever be above God - or refuse to even believe He exists. The bible tells us that only a fool believes God does not exist.

Psalms 14:1 says:

Only a fool says in their hearts, “There is no God.”

I was a fool because I wouldn’t listen to God, and full of pride because I thought I knew better than Him and I did not Trust God. That is pride and foolishness - I tuned Him out because I thought it was His voice in my head telling me I was worthless, a burden, unloveable. I based my entire life on a lie because I was not taught to Fix my eyes on Jesus.

This is the key to your path forward, but only you can step into it. Step onto the path of faith-based believing. If we don’t begin here. If we do not fix our eyes on Jesus and Learn of Him -and what are we learning??? We are learning the principles of God’s kingdom and it is those principles that will bring life and healing to our lives here on earth.

Like me, the Israelites were proud and foolish.

Earlier we read from Nehemiah and there was a verse in there, verse 16:

Read - “But our ancestors were proud and stubborn, and they paid no attention to your commands.

Another translation reads Nehemiah 9:16 this way:
But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their necks, and did not heed your commands.

I spent most of my life acting presumptuously over wrong thinking which brought about a lot of bad things in my life. My own conduct, choices, beliefs and behaviors are what brought bad into my life - not God - but yet I blamed Him because, well because He is God. I thought I would be sheltered from anything bad in life, if He loved me. If I was acceptable to Him. Who knew that there are consequences to our choices or even other peoples choices that we had no say in, but as we grow up and do not tend to the wounds from our youth, then often times we find -that it is often our own actions, behaviors , thoughts that bring about the chaos , disorder and destruction in our lives, not God continuously bopping us over the head. We can do our own bopping very well on our own, thank you very much! LOL!

I presumed a lot of things which actually brought a lot of extra stress and anxieties, and isolation into my life because I was stiff necked, stubborn, rebellious, and refused to Trust God. If you are a victim of the biggest lie we can ever fall for, that God is against us. He is the reason for the bad in our lives - if you have any thoughts like this at all!!!!! You have become a victim of identity fraud! And you need to rip up the script in your mind and learn a new way of thinking and believing and you do that by …. YES! Fixing your eyes on Jesus.

My life lacked air after the death of my daughter, I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live or if I even deserved to live. Because of guilt, shame, and a stiff neck towards God, I sentenced myself to a prison wall around my heart and soul. I buried any thought of happiness and love that I so desperately once wanted. I created a life of misery for many, many years. And not only did I impact my own life, but it created destruction in the health and wholeness of my own children.

So please heed this plea because I know the weight, the worth it will have upon your very life. Empower yourself to FIX YOUR EYES ON JESUS - keep a journal and celebrate every little victory in your life.

#2 Develop Self- Discipline - It sucks, it’s hard at 1st! But there is no way to develop muscles without a little strain, a push.

Self-discipline over our emotions and feelings will help empower us to be stronger, more stable days and less roller-coaster days, we will be healthier throughout our entire being and have less stress and anxiety.

Self-discipline does not have to come with dread. But rather, I would suggest approaching it with a determined happy step. Rather than coming at the day from a mind full of “ Oh gosh, today I can’t do this and I can’t do that and I have to do that. And so on, We wake up and say, today, I am going to smile a lot! I don’t know how good I’ll be at it this first time around, but I am grateful for the day so I am going to smile.

It is so simple, so really, that is self discipline?????? But just wait, be watchful, mindful of how many times in that day you will be tempted to gripe, grumple, grimmice, and grind your teeth because you want to be rude, and spout off at the mouth and instead you smile and walk away. 👏

That is VICTORY!!!Clap! Give yourself a hand, write it down in your journal! It is progress and that is what God is really looking for. Not if we are perfect, but are we putting in any effort at all. There are enough discourteous people in the world as it is. Let’s not add to that number, but switch buckets and start filling them up with kindness, respect, compassion, gratitude. Open a door for someone. Say please and thank you. Smile and let someone go in front of you.

Get up every day with a determined purpose to just simply be grateful for the day. Do you know what God’s will for you personally is? What His will is for all of His children??

1 Thessalonians 5:15 says this:
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for that is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Another simple, basic and powerful step in gaining empowerment over our lives is to learn to live with a disciplined attitude of gratitude.

If we can learn to live 1 Thessalonians 5:15 every day, it won’t take very long before we will begin to see our lives richly blessed.

We are going to begin to Fix our eyes on Jesus and meditate on Matthew 11:28-30

We will - Come to Jesus and He will help us with all of our worry, burden, stress, and He will give us rest.

We will - Learn Of Him because He is gentle and humble in heart, and He will give us rest for our souls.

This will help us to retrain our brain - shift our thinking.

Then we are going to begin practicing Self- Discipline and not allow our emotions to dictate whether we will have a good day or a bad day, but rather we are going to fix our thoughts - shift our thinking off of our negative emotions and meditate on 1 Thessalonians. We are going to rejoice! We are going to think of 1 thing that we can be grateful for and shift our attitude from doom and gloom to delight and glee.

Remember Philippians, our critical self-examination verse, will help us with this next step in strengthening our Self Control Discipline muscles.

And that is to not blame others for our own unhappiness, but to examine our own hearts, thoughts and attitudes.

Proverbs 28:13 tells us this:
Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them, finds MERCY!

I stayed on the wilderness path of misery for decades, because I wanted to blame the whole world for my wounds and hurts, pains and loss. It was easier - I thought! I didn’t want to face the shame and the horror and the ashes of my life. I didn’t want to heal. I wanted to remain miserable. I promised my daughter when I watched them lower her into the ground that I would never allow myself to be happy again, and I sentenced myself by the thoughts of betrayal and shame I felt because of her death. I wanted to be punished so I couldn’t be happy - BUT when I was finally miserable and broken and cast down far enough and started repenting and facing all the hard stuff I ran from for far too long, God was there FULL of MERCY!!!! And Jesus was there to help lead me back, gently with no shame, no heavy beating sticks whipping down on my. .Nothing but love and grace and mercy and comfort! He made sure there was ease and rest so nothing was too hard. We stopped and rested as often as I needed. He never pushed, He only taught me the way out.

NOW! I debrief with the Lord at the end of the day every day and most often I am in constant communication with Him throughout the day-

But I Examine my own behaviors and thoughts from throughout the day. I simply chat with God about how I felt. When I knew I was walking in love and when I was full of my flesh! I have learned to listen to the Holy Spirit as He nudges me or whispers to my spirit when I speak ill of someone for example. When I am actually paying attention, I will catch the nudge BEFORE I OPEN MY MOUTH!! LOL!

Or I turned my nose up (in my mind of course) if someone said something I disagreed with. When I muttered under my breath when I thought someone was stupid. And then I will talk about when something was really hard for me, but I let go of my way and trusted God to work it all out and it ended up turning out even better than my way. And I thank Him for making it an easier day because I listened. I just kinda walk through the day that way. Maybe 10-15 minutes or so. But it just has really helped me stay more aware of being present in the moment and thinking before reacting - knowing that later I was going to be talking to my heavenly Father about this. IT Helps me take a deep breath and say Holy Spirit, I need help!

Well, we’ve only spoken on 2 of the 5 and it is getting late on our time, so let’s wrap up today by meditating on these 2 first steps to a more satisfying, empowering and content life.

1) Fix our eyes on Jesus - meditating on
Matthew 11: 28-30
Jesus tells us in Matthew - “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and Learn of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For MY yoke is easy and My burden is light. “

And

2) Practicing Self - Discipline - meditating on 1 Thessalonians and Philippians

1 Thessalonians 5:15
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for that is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2:12
…continue to work out your salvation - [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]

Let’s not be presumptuous, stiff-necked people. But a people full of hope, confidence and Trust in our Heavenly Father.

REMEMBER!

God IS for You - God Loves you!

If you want more peace, less strife - more contentment, less resentment - more joy, less angst - the answer is not going to be found in anything visible in this world. It only exists with a surrendered life to Jesus, believing God is I AM, Creator of the World, the ONLY ONE TRUE SOVEREIGN GOD, and learning to be led by the Holy Spirit. That is the only path to have a victorious, satisfying, fulfilling life. Now and for all eternity!

That is why we need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. He changes the perspective of how we see, even if the actual circumstance hasn’t changed. A mountain can appear to be a molehill, able to be climbed with ease. But without being led by the Holy Spirit and keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, most often, at least for my experiences, the mole hills become the mountains, Cold, hard, dangerous mountains with rough terrain and little ease.

Next week we will wrap up the Summer Series with part 2 as we continue to chat about the 3 remaining points for us to implement into our faith journey with God. Following our Shepherd Jesus and being Empowered through God’s Spirit within us.

A spirit-led life that lines our perspective up with what God’s word says, not the world. That is walking by faith. Trusting God

God Bless! And see you next week!

Songs to inspire you

Jesus Does
Forrest Frank - GOOD DAY (Official Audio)
Nothing Is Wasted | Live | Elevation Worship

Scriptures from this week's Podcast

Matthew 11:28-30
“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and Learn Of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For MY yoke is easy and My burden is light. “

Nehemiah 9:9-17
9“You saw the misery of our ancestors in Egypt, and you heard their cries from beside the Red Sea.c 10You displayed miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, his officials, and all his people, for you knew how arrogantly they were treating our ancestors. You have a glorious reputation that has never been forgotten. 11You divided the sea for your people so they could walk through on dry land! And then you hurled their enemies into the depths of the sea. They sank like stones beneath the mighty waters. 12You led our ancestors by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night so that they could find their way.

15“You gave them bread from heaven when they were hungry and water from the rock when they were thirsty. You commanded them to go and take possession of the land you had sworn to give them.

16“But our ancestors were proud and stubborn, and they paid no attention to your commands. 17They refused to obey and did not remember the miracles you had done for them. Instead, they became stubborn and appointed a leader to take them back to their slavery in Egypt.d But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love. You did not abandon them,

Psalms 14:1:
Only a fool says in their hearts, “There is no God.”

1 Thessalonians 5:15:
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for that is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2:12:
Continue to work out your salvation - [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]

Foundation Verse

Romans 8:11

The Spirit of God, Who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Chrisr Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living in you. “

Additional Resources

Prayer of Salvation

Jesus has given salvation, healing, and countless benefits to all who call upon His name. These benefits can be yours if you receive Him into your heart by saying this prayer:

Heavenly Father, I come to You admitting that I am a sinner. Right now, I choose to turn away from sin, and I ask You to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. I believe that Jesus rose again from the dead so that I may be justified and made righteous through faith in Him. I call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be the Savior and Lord of my life. Jesus, I choose to follow You, and I ask that You fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit. I declare right now that I am a born again, child of God. I am free from sin and full of the righteousness of God. I am saved in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This prayer and the comment above, were taken out of the book:

Secrets to Powerful Prayer - Discovering the Languages of the Heart

By Lynne Hammond and Patsy Cameneti

If you have just received Jesus as your Savior, please write Lynne Hammond Ministries at:

PO Box 29469

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55429-2946

Or, email one of the ministries listed on the Additional Resources Tab and let them know that you are a brand new christian and need some direction on the next steps for your new life in Christ.

Or email us here at Heartfelt Conversations with Diana and we will pass along your information for you.

Congratulations if you are a brand new Christian or if you have Returned Home! Welcome!!! Get in God’s Word and get it into you!

Diana’s Home Church:

Valley Family Church - Pastor’s Eric and Alexa Jones
www.valleyfamilychurch.org

Other recommended Jesus-centered churches who teach the True Word of God:

Elevation Church - Steven Furtick
https://elevationchurch.org/

Joseph Prince Ministries - Joseph Prince
https://www.josephprince.org/

Joyce Meyer Ministries
https://joycemeyer.org/

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