thoughts by Sylvia Gunter Archives - Page 2 of 11

Published January 2, 2023

Strength to Equal Your Days

Listen with your spirit to the Word of God in

Deuteronomy 33:25b. “Your strength will equal your days.”

2 Corinthians 13:4 “Jesus was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in Him, yet by God’s power we will live with Him to serve you.”

Beloved one, by your Father’s strength you have life.

I bless you with strength in your spirit for each day. I bless you with waking up every morning knowing that the living God is sustaining, strengthening, and renewing your spirit, soul, and body for the opportunities and problems that he sets before you today. I bless you with knowing that your Father’s power provides everything you need today for being who you are called to be and doing acts of obedience to him that he appoints for you to do in Jesus’ name. I bless you with the assurance of inner quiet, security, and strength for each day for as long as God chooses your lifetime to be. I bless you with assurance of his help and presence in all the majesty of his glorious detail with which he has ordained your days. I bless you with a constant and growing sense of his presence with you for his purposes and his pleasure.

By your Father’s promise you have life. Beloved one, listen with your spirit to God’s Word in Psalm 119:50. “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.” Your Father renews your heart and your spirit with his promises. I bless you with recalling the many times that your Father has been with you, has loved you, has taken care of you, has blessed you. I bless you with holding on to promises that he is making to you from his Word and by his Spirit. I bless you with deep understanding that his words are your very life. I bless you with knowing that your faithful Father is watching over his purposes that await a future time for fulfillment. I bless you with enjoying life, being renewed, refreshed, and restored in your relationship with God and his faithfulness expressed in his Word.

By your Father’s life you have life. Beloved one, listen with your spirit to God’s Word in John 5:26. “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” Your Father has life, and he has given his Son life in himself. I bless you with the life that Jesus has in you. I bless you with knowing the life of your Father and of his Son living in you and enlarging your spirit to know him better and love him more. I bless you with knowing that you are alive and well and awake and fully present to life today by the power of his Holy Spirit.

By the power of the Living One you have life. Beloved one, listen with your spirit to God’s Word in John 11:25. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live...’ ” I bless you with believing that the Living One lives in you as your life for today. I bless you with appropriating with your spirit the full measure of the life of Jesus within you for the here-and-now.

By the light of Jesus you have life. Listen again with your spirit to John 1:4. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.” I bless you with light that comes from the life of Jesus living in you and through you. I bless you with his life that lights your way, your relationships, your time, your decisions.

By the words of Jesus you have life. Beloved one, listen to John 6:63. “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” I bless your spirit with hearing and knowing the words that Jesus speaks to you. I bless you with meeting him daily spirit-to-Spirit. I bless you with not doing anything by mere human effort. I bless you with being energized with the life of eternity upon all that you are, and think, and do.

Be blessed in the name of Jesus who is your life.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

Intimacy with God

Hear God’s Word to you in Psalm 25:14.

“The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.”

And in Genesis 3:8.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”

God wants to walk with you and talk with you.

Welcome Him to come into the garden of your heart and fellowship with Him… no books, no Bible, no sermon, no ritual, no expectations, no agenda. Just be, spending time with Him. Be free of chains of expectation or performance in worship. Your Father’s heart will minister to you, and you will respond in adoration. Be blessed to be filled with new worship that is deeply satisfying to God and that exceeds all your previous definitions of “good worship.”

Be blessed in your time with the living God as you are spirit-to-Spirit with Him. Be in touch with the Spirit so that you enter into new communion. Hear the sounds of heaven as you fellowship with Him in intimacy. Let Him touch you deeply. Experience love, trust, and deep emotional satisfaction in Him. Intimate friendship with God is reserved for those who are crazy about Him. Be free to know your First Love and to come into harmony with Him. Nothing compares with intimacy with Him in richness and beauty when you meet Him in surrender and wait on Him in faith, hope, and love.

God confided in Abraham and Moses. He called them His friends. Christ said to the disciples, “You are my friends,” and He says to you, “You are my friends if you obey my Father’s commandments.” Friendship with God is cultivated by authenticity in loving obedience. You were designed to live in friendship with Him and share your life with Him. Claim your friendship with God by coming boldly to His throne of grace. Since friendship is mutual, you give to Him, even as He meets the needs of the depths of your being.

John 1:14 says that Jesus the Word “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” His presence is your true home. Sit on His lap, feel His arms around you, listen to His voice, hear His heartbeat. Fall in love with Him. Be bathed in His love and experience His presence. Your true identity is beloved of God, not worker for Him. Know Him intimately, and relentlessly pursue Him with steadfast hunger for more. Live with humility of heart before Him, and ascribe “worth-ship” to Him. Reflect Him in your life.

John 1:14 also says, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” See His glory that Jesus brought from His Father. Receive the fullness of His grace and truth.

Be blessed in the name of the One and Only (John 1:14).

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission
To learn more about Sylvia Gunter visit www.thefathersbusiness.com

Are you at a place in your life where you want to know Jesus – walk and talk with Him? You can start a life surrendered to Christ today. This is a sample, simple prayer, but the words are powerful and full of meaning. If you believe them Christ will make something beautiful out of your life:

Lord Jesus, I want to know You personally. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to You and ask You to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.

It starts now!

10 Things to Pray for Friends and Family

The Bible instructs us to bear one another’s burdens.

Many problems are too heavy for us to bear alone.

Faced with extreme hardship, Paul wrote that he counted on the prayers of his friends for victory (2 Corinthians 1:8-11, Philippians 1:19, Romans 15:30-32)

1. Pray that their love for others will grow. 1 Corinthians. 13:4-7, Philippians 1:9-11.

2. Pray for unity, agreement, unselfishness, humility, and oneness in Christ.
Philippians 2:1-5, John 17:11, 21.

3. Pray that they will have the mind of Christ and acknowledge the Lord daily to direct their lives. 1 Corinthians 2:11-16, Proverbs 3:5-6.

4. Pray that they will present themselves as living sacrifices to God. Romans 12:1-2.

5. Pray that they will know who they are in Christ. Colossians 1:28, 2:10, Ephesians 1:3-4, 7-8.

6. Pray that they will hunger daily for the word of God and grow daily in Christlike maturity. Matthew. 4:4, Ephesians 4:11-16, Philippians 2:12-13.

7. Pray that they will put on the full armor of God and be alert to Satan’s strategies. Ephesians 6:10-18.

8. Pray that they will not love the world system but set their mind on Christ.
1 John 2:15-17, Philippians 4:8.

9. Pray that they will have a servant’s heart with a spirit of brokenness and humility.
Mark 10:44-45, Psalm 51:17.

10. Pray that they will develop a praying heart, worshiping, praising, and thanking God as they see His hand of blessing extended to them. Psalm 103:1-2, 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18.

Holy Spirit, enable me to pray for my family and friends according to the mind of God. Thank You, God, for answering my prayers according to Your will as I plead Your promises.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

Taken from Prayer Portions p. 321, © 1991, 1992, 1995 by Sylvia Gunter.
Available at www.thefathersbusiness.com

What Is God Saying To Me?

We’re all on pilgrimage with God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. I do not want to miss the lessons of the journey or forget His words of intimate delight, wise counsel, and gentle correction.

God means what He says.
God is serious with us in the matter of complete obedience. Ninety-eight per cent conformity to his will and his ways is not obedience. We want to say, “Cut us some slack, God,” but it costs not to obey him all the way. Remember Lot’s wife. Remember King Saul in the matter of the king of Amalek. If we compromise and treat God’s holy character lightly, we lose.

Only weakness will break strongholds.
God asks us to lead from weakness, not strength. God loves us too much to let us succeed in our own strength. William Gurnall said, “We have embezzled his strength, and he calls an audit.” His name is I AM. I rest in the fact that He is. Without Him, I can do nothing, a big zero. God asks of us what He can do.

I try to live by grace, but unless God does a work of grace in me, I can’t.
I try to speak grace words, which are words of life, and only God is sufficient for that in me. I fully take all His love, but my life presents at best only snapshots of His grace.

God will not go any further than His children are willing to be pure.
Purity before God is the cutting edge. We must obey Him and not reserve the right to discard any part of His truth. We reject His holiness at our own peril and that of others in our sphere of influence. It is not just a personal issue. It also has consequences for those we will affect in this generation. King David sinned against the counsel of his closest adviser. It cost the whole nation of Israel thousands of lives (1 Chronicles 21). That is sobering. God says to us, “I can do all things. Will you repent of your willful ways and see My glory?”

God has been gracious to cover our ignorance.
God has been merciful up till now, but He may no longer cover us concerning what we are not ignorant of. Presumption will result in disaster. God is doing a new thing which will lead to more freedom and at the same time require greater accountability to Him. He has new directions for us and deeper levels for us with Him, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see Him and respond to Him. He wants new wine skins for a outpouring of His Spirit in this generation.

I must not listen to seducing voices.
Seducing voices will suggest we take the easy road, or take matters into our own hands by our own power, or follow the dramatic or sensational. We must give no ground to comfort, deception, or denial of reality. This will require a very fine-tuned antenna, homed in on God’s voice alone.

I have missed eternal moments that sneaked up on me when I was oblivious.
We often expect Jesus to come in the front door, and He comes in the back way and tries to tap us on the shoulder to turn around and see Him. I feel dull of hearing, about as sharp as a bowling ball much of the time, so it all has to be God. We know nothing but Him. We are clueless without Him. I am as weak as I have ever felt. I am exposed and vulnerable. I don’t want to miss God as He moves in power among His people.

I am passionate about ministering to God, tuning into His heart, honoring Him, receiving from Him.
The heart of Jesus is ravished for His bride. He is jealous for our affection. He will not share us with another love. He wants to captivate us for Himself as His beloved.

Get still with God in your favorite “Bethel,” your place of meeting with Him.

Let Him open up His heart to you personally, between you and Him.

Prayerfully reflect on your life in Christ. What is He saying to you? Let Him review the traces of His hand in your life. Ask Him to speak to you intimately and powerfully in a key of music you can hear.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

Overlook an Offence

Offence is the act of provoking, annoying, irritating, or causing pain or injury. It is also the reaction the offense produces, like indignation, resentment, or anger, which can lead to breach in a relationship. When someone sins against us, our flesh rises up and demands retribution. But the way of grace must watch over our hearts, guard our mouths, and release the offender.

The writer of Proverbs urges us to respond to offenses by giving evidence of the grace of God. Read these pairs of statements from a very wise man, and ask God to reveal how you responded the last time you were offended.

A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense (Proverbs 19:11). Patience is wisdom, and wisdom lets an offense pass by without responding sinfully. Love keeps no record of wrongs suffered.

Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city (Proverbs 16:32). It is better to be patient than warlike or contentious. A Spirit-controlled response wins battles.

An offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city, and disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel (Proverbs 18:19). A hostile relationship is hard to win back. Contention separates people into opposing sides. Jesus died to break down the dividing walls.

He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity (Proverbs 21:23). When our unguarded mouth gives vent to our unhealed heart, we unleash words that hurt deeply.

Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, Do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared (Proverbs 22:24-25). Don’t take personally the anger of angry people, or you will find yourself reacting to them in the same destructive way.

Calmness can lay great errors [offenses] to rest (Ecclesiastes 10:4). A quiet spirit will overcome great anger and turn aside the hurtful actions of others.

“Let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle (offense or occasion to fall) in your brother’s way” (Romans 14:13). Identify the redemptive purpose of Jesus in each situation and relationship. Our motivation is in the great forgiveness of Jesus. We overlook offenses because Jesus took our offenses and bore them to His cross.

“He was delivered over to death for our sins (offenses)” (Romans 4:25). Those who have been forgiven much will forgive much.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

God’s Perspective on Hope in Disappointment

Listen to the Word of God for you in Romans 15:13.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Be blessed to let God separate you from the soulish bonds that have held you captive in disappointment and hopelessness. Be blessed by your Father’s will, His heart, and His words. Let Him do His perfect work to enlarge you to receive more of His fullness spirit, soul, and body. Look to Jesus for ministry. He will shine the light of His Spirit in you to show you who you are and who He is in you and for you. Welcome His light.

The God of hope calls you to hope (Ephesians 1:18). You were designed for hope. You are His own special creation. He determined for you an appointed place and time. He has given you the good gift of Himself to live in you. He has deposited in you His great love in making you just the way you are, the real you, your true essence. You are blessed as He celebrates, affirms, and validates your unique identity for your authority, calling, and birthright in Him. You can hardly receive these words if you have received wounds of disappointment. Your soul has done everything it knows to do to heal them, but still disappointment gnaws deep inside you beyond reach. Jesus, your Kinsman-Redeemer, is ready to redeem the years that the locusts have eaten when you cancel your soul’s expectations.

You were created by God for eternity forever with Him. Satan can’t take that away from you, so he has sent fiery arrows to rob you, deeply penetrating missiles of disappointment with others, with yourself, and with God.

Jesus your Redeemer wants to pull the poisons out of the wounds in your spirit and your soul. He wants you to know and respond to Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, because He said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And when the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:32,36). God is inviting you to see truth with Him. That’s a powerful invitation. It is life-changing to own up to what you are seeing and hearing from Him, coming out of denial and truly allowing God’s truth to come into you. Be blessed as you let God reach into the deep places of your being. Be blessed as He wants you to exchange disappointment for His hope and love (Romans5:5, NLT). Be blessed to receive His hope that does not disappoint.

Be blessed in the name of the God of hope who fills you with all joy and peace as you trust Him (Romans 15:13).

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

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Blessing Of Your Heavenly Father

God rejoices as your Abba.

You are His child on the authority of His Word. He ordained you and brought you forth.

Hear God’s Word for you in Psalm 22:9. The psalmist said,

“You brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother’s breast.”

And in Psalm 71:6. “From birth I have relied on you…I will ever praise you.”

Receive God’s work as He cleanses deep wounds that you received from words and actions in your family of origin. Receive the ministry of Jehovah-Rapha, the healing covenant name of eternal God, as He works in the core of your being. Receive His healing, blessing, and deep release. The Spirit of your Father lives in you to heal and make you whole.

The Spirit of truth and the God of all mercy is ready to bring new life. Receive His cleansing from all hurtful memories, feelings, and emotions. Jesus died to set you free. Release all pain to Him. God promised in His word that He would wash you and make you whiter than snow (Isaiah 1:18).

Be blessed as God fills up the hole in your heart, those empty spaces, that bottomless pit that craves nearness, affirmation, connection, and significance, and yet fears it, is unable to receive it, and runs away from it. Be at peace, and receive healing from wounds caused by lack of bonding. Receive cleansing from attachment wounds, as Father-God binds you to Himself with cords that cannot be broken.

God fed His Son with His words of approval that nourished Him emotionally.

“A voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased‘” (Mark 1:11).

These words strengthened Jesus in His inner being. If the Son of God needed these words of affirmation from His Father, how much more do you!

You longed to hear words like that from your earthly father. Receive your heavenly Father’s words, “I love you. I am pleased with you.” Let your heavenly Father, father you.

Be blessed to rest secure and safe in His love.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

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God is Able

Able is the Greek word dunatos, related to dunamis, meaning ability, abundance, capability, mighty works, miraculous power, prevailing strength.

“God is able” means God has the mighty power to do a miraculous work out of His abundance and strength.

Romans 16:25 says God is able to establish you. Listen to the richness of the verse when read with its full definition “God has mighty power to do a miraculous work out of His abundance and strength to establish you.”

Bring your inability to the ability of God.

As you read these verses drink in the bigness of God as you replace “able” with “has the mighty power to do a miraculous work out of His abundance and strength.”

God is …

Able to give much more.   2 Chronicles 25:9
Able to deliver from fire.   Daniel 3:17
Able to raise up children of Abraham from stones.   Mathew 3:9
Able to give sight to the blind. Mathew 9:28-29
Able to destroy in hell.   Mathew 10:28, James 4:12
Able to perform what He promised.   Romans 4:21
Able to graft in the Gentiles.   Romans 11:23
Able to make you stand.   Romans 14:4
Able to establish you.   Romans 16:25
Able to make a way through temptation. 1 Corinthians 10:13
Able to make all grace abound to you.   2 Corinthians 9:8
Able to do exceedingly beyond all your asking.   Ephesians 3:20
Able to subdue everything under His control.   Philippines 3:21
Able to keep all we have committed to Him.   2 Timothy 1:12
Able to help the tempted.   Hebrews 2:18
Able to save from death.   Hebrews 5:7
Able to save completely, to the utmost.   Hebrews7:25
Able to raise men from the dead.   Hebrews 11:19
Able to keep you from falling and to present you before His presence without fault and with great joy.   Jude 24

To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. Jude 25

Be blessed in the name of God who is able.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by permission
from: Prayer Essentials For Living In His Presence, Vol 1, page 74 © 2000 Sylvia Gunter

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Praise as Warfare

Praise is adoration of God for who He is, His person, His character, His names.

It is loving God because He is God. The Bible gives more exhortations to praise than to pray, because God is altogether lovely, holy, and completely worthy of our worship.

Reasons to praise

Praise is the atmosphere of the throne room of heaven. Revelation 4

Praise is where God lives. Psalm 22:3

Praise provides access into His presence. Psalm 100

We are created for praise. Ephesians 1:12, Isaiah 43:21

We are saved to praise. Psalm 106:47

God delights in it. Psalm 149:1, 4

God inspires it. Psalm 40:3

God is due it. Psalm 29

God commands it in the Scriptures. Psalm 34:1, 3

Jesus modelled it by example. Matthew 6:9

Praise is the God-given garment in exchange for spirit of heaviness. Isaiah 61:3

Praise stirs up faith. Romans 4:20-21

You are probably facing a battle today. Praise is a strategic weapon that comes before spiritual victory or deliverance. God releases power against the enemy when His people praise. Praise has been winning wars throughout the ages. Look at these biblical examples.

Joshua 5:14-15, 6:2 Joshua bowed to worship, and God told him that Jericho was already in his hands. As the Israelites marched around the city, they walked out the victory already won in worship.

Judges 7:15 Gideon bowed to worship, returned to his camp, and reported, “Arise, God has given the enemy into our hands.”

2 Chronicles 20:22 “When they began singing and praising...” The Israelites used praise at God’s direction for winning a tremendous victory. They had not even reached the battlefront when God acted and completely destroyed their three-fold enemy.

Acts 16:25-26 Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns. Suddenly a violent earthquake shook the foundations of the prison. The prison doors flew open, and prisoners were set free.

It is sometimes more important to persevere in praise than to continue to petition. Why?

Because in praise, we take our eyes off people and stop struggling on the human level. We focus our spiritual eyes on God and see beyond ourselves and our problem. Then we can lay hold of His infinite ability, availability, and sovereignty. Praise stirs up our faith to stand in His mighty name.

Because God has already judged the adversary, and he is a defeated foe. Praise executes upon him the judgments that God has already written (Psalm 149:6-9).

Because praise acknowledges the victory Christ already won. Jesus is far above all rule, authority, power and dominion, and every name in this age (Ephesians 1:20-21). His victory over Satan was legally accomplished at Calvary. Praise speeds victory. Let’s use our valuable weapon of praise for the battles we are facing today.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission
From: www.thefathersbusiness.com

Fruit of Joy

Beloved child of God, listen to your Father’s heart and his ways for you in Galatians 5:22-23,25.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control… Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.“

Listen to God’s Word for you in Nehemiah 8:10.

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”

God’s purpose in his creation was his own pleasure. He rejoices in all his works (Psalm 104:31). Job 38:7 says that God laid the foundations of the earth and marked off its dimensions and did all his work of creation while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy. Imagine the same joy of God when he created you! Your Father is joy, and he plants his joy inside you in the person of his Son. Jesus lives in joy in you.

Be blessed to drink deeply of the joy that God your Father has in you as his beloved. Be blessed with his understanding of joy, not the world’s fickle happiness. Be blessed to know the joy of the Lord that gives you the strength to go forward, to press on, to endure hardship. Be blessed with the oil of joy that flows from heaven. God commands for you the blessing of life in his joy, defeating depression, destruction, and death.

Joy is the quiet, inner sense of well-being in Jesus, but it also can be intense motion. Be blessed with rejoicing with intensity that words cannot fully express. Be blessed with Christ’s overflowing joy that bubbles up in you to flow out of you (Philippians 1:26). He promises joy that nobody and nothing can take away (John 16:22). Be blessed as you are filled with the joy that the Holy Spirit imparts in your place in the kingdom (Romans 14:17).

Joy can also be a daily decision and a battle. You can count it all joy in trials of any kind, when you know that your Father does all things well for you. Be blessed as you pursue Jesus who is joy. He came so that you can have this kind of joy. It is his gift to you (Romans 15:13). Be blessed in the incomparable joy of Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Be blessed to be energized for each new day and each new challenge with joy that comes from him.

Have you ever been blessed to watch someone laugh? You laughed too, for no other reason than that they were joyful. Be contagious with joy in gratitude that you share in the inheritance of his holy people who live in his light (Colossians 1:11-12). Be blessed to be an ambassador of joy in a world filled with stress and sadness. Be blessed as you spread joy wherever you touch the lives of others. Be blessed to lighten the load of others and strengthen weary hearts with the joy of Jesus. Be blessed to brighten and refresh the weary spirits of others with joyful confidence in Jesus.

Be blessed with the joy that the Spirit of joy produces in you, your response to his joy (Galatians 5:22).

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

Brokenness and Glory

Don’t miss the weight of these words from God, one phrase at a time. Tell your mind to let your spirit lead in connecting with the Spirit of truth in this passage.

1 Peter 1:3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...”
Resonate with the words “living hope through Jesus!” He gave you birth to new abundant life in him. Be blessed as your life in him unfolds daily, one step of faithfulness at a time. Seasons end, new birth happens. It can be confusing, because God doesn’t give you neat signposts. He wants you to keep your eyes on him, as Jesus is your living hope. Be blessed with glimpses of God’s purpose in it all.

1 Peter 1:4. “…into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you...”
You are an heir to a rich inheritance, all the riches of Christ Jesus. His purposes for you are in his keeping power. They can never die, or spoil, or fade away without fulfilling his heart for you. You are right in the middle of God’s process for you. You don’t have to settle for God’s second best because of somebody else’s choices or your own. As you are being who you are in him, you can do what you are supposed to do. You may have disappointments, but your life is his story with depth, adventure, suspense, surprising plot turns, and darkness that Jesus defeated. Be blessed as you understand more of his story that he is writing in your life.

1 Peter 1:5. “…who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
God surrounds you with his favor as a shield. You are shielded by his power, so that in every dark thing you’ve experienced, you can live large and strong. God put you on earth in your exact place for his specific purpose, and you are living in that purpose, even when you don’t know it. Your soul may be grumbling and resisting, but you are living the story that God is ready to reveal to you. God is a lot bigger than you expect him to be. He’s a lot bigger than your circumstances. He is the God of detail. When you seek his face, he is deeply involved in the small details of your life, but he has a “bigger yes” for you. Your true glory is the revelation of his splendor, revealed in you day by day.

1 Peter 1:6. “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”
As Jesus is revealed in you, you can rejoice no matter what. The display of his glory often comes through your wounds. Your dark nights showcase by contrast his splendid dawns, your griefs contrast with his glorious joy. In brokenness, God works in you something beautiful, deep, and substantial to offer others. You are developing inner strength as you are being blessed, broken, and given as an offering in your trials. True strength comes from your desperate need of God. You are a joy to him as you offer your true self as a spectacle of his sufficiency. Paul said he wanted to know Christ and be conformed to the fellowship of sharing his sufferings, knowing there’s a resurrection coming (Philippians 3:10).

Be blessed to know that your Father created you for this time, for these very circumstances. He knew exactly what would be happening in your life as you are living it now. He knows the impact for which he is preparing you that still awaits you. Be blessed to live into the purpose for which you were created, in spite of difficult people, through hard circumstances, and through tough challenges. Your purpose is in process. You won’t get there overnight. You won’t magically wake up with it one morning. But today you are closer than yesterday, and tomorrow you will be closer than you are today. Be blessed in him to know these things and rejoice in him.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

God’s Masterpiece

God is investing in you, caring for you, nurturing you. Be blessed with becoming everything He has called you to be.

With your spirit receive God’s Word for you from Proverbs 8:30-31.

“Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.”

And in Ephesians 2:10 NLT.

“For we are God’s masterpiece...”

God delights in how He made you. You are one of His masterpieces. You are His song to be sung in a key of music that is unique to you, in a rhythm, a harmony, and an orchestration that God rejoices to sing inside of you. The music of heaven graces your life as others see and hear and touch who you are, so that they receive from Him the awesome display of His delight in you.

Appreciate the delightful work of God’s hands that you are. God designed what you do to be built on the foundation of who you are in Him. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says,

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.“

You are not a tool designed to function to do good works because the world needs them done. God has given you the authority and compassion to be a part of meeting needs, but higher than that, you are beautiful and complete like the portrait that God painted in 1 Samuel 16:18 of a man after His own heart. You are a worshiper who sings back to Him the songs of heaven. You are brave with holy boldness, kept by the One who stands strong in you. You are a warrior who fights the right battles because you listen to your Commander. You have wise and gracious words that come from the wellspring of a righteous heart. You are fine-looking as you reflect the image of Jesus. You possess the signature that the Lord is with you. He “signed off on you.” Receive the seal of His signature on you.

In your spirit you are blessed to live in the beauty of being well-pleasing to your Father. You are beautiful, dressed in royal robes designed to express the position and privilege of being the King’s heir. You have royal inheritance of authority and privilege. You are a display of His splendor from His throne room. Be blessed with fulfillment in the grace and beauty of heaven seen in you. Be blessed with the peace and joy of heaven about you. You are blessed with the perfume of heaven about you. You are blessed with the color and light of heaven reflected upon you.

God is investing in you, caring for you, nurturing you. Be blessed with becoming everything He has called you to be and being all He has designed you to become so that all of heaven rejoices. Receive the delight of Jesus in His creation: you!

Be blessed in the name of the One who rejoices in His works (Psalm 104:31).

My Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission
From: You Are Blessed In The Names of God,

You are Secure as the Beloved

Beloved one, get quiet, listen to this blessing, and hear the voice of love saying good things to you.

Hear God’s Word for you in Deuteronomy 33:12.

“Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.”

Beloved one, get quiet, listen to this blessing, and hear the voice of love saying good things to you. You can rest in the full truth that you are your Father’s beloved. The voice of your loving Father resonates in you in a deep place. He called you his beloved from eternity. Taste deeply of love, of God, and of truth. Know the treasure you are to God. You are a chosen one, a special person, noticed in your uniqueness, eternally valued. You are priceless and irreplaceable, safe in his everlasting embrace, at rest in his non-comparing love.

Increasingly be aware of your belovedness. You are precious in your Father’s heart. Hear this so that you live with a stable, settled sense of true belonging. The good things you DO reveal what a beautiful person you ARE. Your real gift is not so much what you can DO as who you ARE.

Be blessed with your heavenly Father providing a safe, secure environment, without having to test him continually, fearfully asking the questions, such as “Are you still with me? Will you still be with me if…? Prove it by...” Be blessed to choose against the accuser’s lies about your adequacy, identity, legitimacy, your past, present, and future. Be blessed to know that you can never be rejected or abandoned by your Father. Your loving God never leaves you alone.

His love is your companion every step of the way. Be blessed with knowing his heart nurturing belonging, inclusion, and worth. Be blessed with healing of your soul’s rejection wounds and the spirit abandonment wound that is deeper.

Your Father calls you to become who you are in totality: spirit, soul, and body. All your life is an opportunity to become who you are, to affirm your own true spiritual nature, to claim your unique truth, and to say “Yes” to the one who calls you the beloved. God’s love is the core of your being. Discover more fully who God is and whose child you are. Your legitimacy is settled in him. Trust what he wants you to see and hear.

God has given you great gifts of inner peace, joy of living, sense of well-being, solidness and strength inside, and healing. Share your life in encouragement, hope, and trust. When you are secure, your presence is a joy to those who know you.

Receive and drive a stake in this blessing as the truth that shapes your daily life. Trust the voice of affirmation; it is persistent, strong, and deep. It will never let you go. Synchronize with the voice calling you chosen, and continually align yourself with your belovedness. Don’t be pulled out of your center in your belovedness. Be blessed to be attentively present to him to see his fingerprints and feel his closeness.

Be blessed in the life and in the name of the Chosen One (Luke 23:35).

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

Healing Prayer for Hurting People

Prayer

Come, Holy Spirit, into (my loved one’s) greatest need. Manifest the healing power of Jesus. Show (my loved one) You have forgiven his/her sins and are ready and have the power to heal his/her wounds. You are Jehovah-Rapha, the promise-keeping Healer. Let (my loved one) receive Your tender mercy in this time of need. In Your faithfulness, minister healing grace and love.

We bring (my loved one) under all the redeeming power of the blood of Jesus.

You are El Roi, God who sees these hurts, needs, and struggles. You have already made the Way of healing by the blood of Jesus. Heal all the woundings of childhood and more recently. Remove all the scars of rejection, shame, inferiority, guilt, fear, abuse, and (my loved one) (ask God to reveal others). Heal and remove all the barriers and hindrances in (my loved one’s) life that are keeping (my loved one) from being all Jesus died to make them to be. We bring the life of (my loved one) to the cross. Apply all the work of redemption to (my loved one’s) life for the transforming life of Christ to become theirs. We pray that (my loved one) will take everything to the cross, so that they can accept themselves as the new person in Jesus that they are.

Spirit of truth, Your truth shall set (my loved one) free.

Bring the truth of Jesus to counter the lies that (my loved one) has believed and to dispel the darkness and confusion caused by giving in to the lies. (My loved one) needs a work of your Spirit, because no amount of talking or teaching about this need will be effective.

Minister to (my loved one) these precious truths, that…

I am free from sin by my Savior.

I am free not to respond to the sins of others.

I am free not to be condemned by the sins of others.

I am free to express all my feelings to Father-God, without condemnation, secure in knowing that Jesus understands the feeling of my infirmities.

I am free to have Your truth as my truth, Your mind as my mind, Your freedom as my freedom, Your grace as my grace, Your love as my love, Your strength as my strength, Your holiness as my holiness, Your steadfastness as my steadfastness, and all the fullness of Jesus made real in my life.

I am free to receive all the new life Jesus gives me in exchange for my old life.

We thank You for heavenly Intercessors. Jesus is living in (my loved one) interceding. The Holy Spirit is agreeing with these prayers according to the will of the Father, and God of all comfort and Father of mercies is answering the prayers of His Son. Thank You for this three-fold cord of agreement that (my loved one’s) soul is being healed according to all Your perfect love, grace, and peace.

Thank You for the healing presence of Jesus the Son, God the Father, and God the Spirit, who ministers comfort, restoration, hope, trust, and rest, so that (my loved one) can live victoriously in the life of Jesus at all times. May (my loved one) receive complete wholeness from You, as (my loved one) practices Your presence each day and fixes their eyes on Jesus. Thank You that You keep (my loved one) in perfect peace as their mind is stayed on You, when they are confident in You (Isaiah 26:3), that You have begun a good work and will perfect Your work for Your glory in their lives (Philippians 1:6).

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission
From: Prayer Portions

PRAYERS FOR THE WEARY

A Prayer for Healing

A Prayer for When You are Weak or Ill

A Prayer for When you Feel Like you have Failed

A Prayer for When you are Fearful

A Prayer for Strength during troubling times

A Prayer for Conflict Resolution

A Prayer for Those Carrying Heavy Burdens

Salvation Explained

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thoughts by Sylvia Gunter Thoughts by Women

Forgiving Yourself

Published March 7, 2022

Forgiving Yourself

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

You’ve blown it. You have really messed up this time. You have agreed with God that what you did was sin. You know that God heard your prayer asking forgiveness, and you really meant every word. You believe that Jesus died for you on the cross and that His sacrifice forgives all your sins. But you still feel guilt and condemnation. You know from the Bible that God has forgotten that sin. He has removed it from you as far as the east is from the west. But you still feel horrible! How do you get past that feeling?

We make life hard by blaming ourselves for things we did in the past. But God says through Paul,

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

What does that freedom really mean? It means that you are not saved from hell to be imprisoned in self-punishment. God has set you free. You are no longer a slave to self-hatred and self-condemnation. The Bible says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).”

Forgiveness is not a feeling. You must choose to deny Satan the accuser and his plans to make you feel guilty and dirty because of sins in the past. When Satan tries to remind you of your past, do these things:

Meditate on the truth of who God is and who you are in Him.

Take into your heart and spirit scriptures about God’s forgiveness, mercy, grace, and love. Psalm 103 is a good place to start.
Take an objective view of your past to learn from your failure. What did you learn about yourself and God through this experience?
Allow God to expose the wound for His healing touch, and refuse the attempts of the accuser and destroyer to harass you anymore, because the King of glory stands as your Defender and Advocate.

Pray this prayer of commitment and begin enjoying the blessings of forgiveness and freedom.

Heavenly Father, thank You that you have never rejected me, and You never will. You have received me unconditionally. I am accepted in Jesus. My acceptance does not depend on anything but Jesus, His love, mercy, grace, sacrifice, and righteousness. I am not ashamed before You.

I repent of my sins in Jesus’ name. Thank You that I am completely forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. I will not allow the enemy to harass me about the past. I choose to forgive myself and receive the full freedom of Your forgiveness.

Thank You that my body can function in Your peace, healed and whole. I choose to let Jesus cover past failures and struggles and enjoy Your love, Your thoughts, and Your ways so that my mind is at rest. What amazing grace that You remember my sins and iniquities no more! Jesus took them on Himself. They are nailed to His cross.

Because of the amazing forgiveness of Jesus, I can forgive others in His name. I choose to forgive all those who have hurt me, harmed me, or spoken against me. I free them in my thoughts and no longer hold their sins against them. Bless them in Your mercy. I do this by Your indwelling power.

Thank You that I am a brand new creation. All the old has passed away, and I stand clean in Your sight. I can settle this today with You. I choose to receive Your healing grace by the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit within me.

Thank You that You control me, not my emotions or what others say or do. I receive all Your blessings for my life and give You all praise, honor, and glory. Amen.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

Category: <span>thoughts by Sylvia Gunter</span>

Beloved one, by your Father’s strength you have life.

Be blessed in the name of Jesus who is your life.

FURTHER READING – Poems

God wants to walk with you and talk with you.

Further Reading

The Bible instructs us to bear one another’s burdens.

Many problems are too heavy for us to bear alone.

Further Reading

Get still with God in your favorite “Bethel,” your place of meeting with Him.

Let Him open up His heart to you personally, between you and Him.

Further Reading

Further Reading

Be blessed in the name of the God of hope who fills you with all joy and peace as you trust Him (Romans 15:13).

Further Reading

God rejoices as your Abba.

Further Reading

“God is able” means God has the mighty power to do a miraculous work out of His abundance and strength.

Bring your inability to the ability of God.

God is …

Further Reading

Praise is adoration of God for who He is, His person, His character, His names.

Reasons to praise

Further Reading

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Further Reading

Further Reading

God is investing in you, caring for you, nurturing you. Be blessed with becoming everything He has called you to be.

Further Reading

Beloved one, get quiet, listen to this blessing, and hear the voice of love saying good things to you.

Be blessed in the life and in the name of the Chosen One (Luke 23:35).

Further Reading

Prayer

PRAYERS FOR THE WEARY

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Further Reading