The Battle Is The Lord's!

Dear Beloved, 

 I was speaking with a sister recently who's up against a big battle in this season. As we spoke, she said she could sense an familiar overwhelming feeling mixed with anxiety trying to overtake her when she thought of the battle, but then she said "I have to remember, the battle is Lord's." There are many times when I go through things in life and I forget that simple, yet profound truth. This fact comes from a variety of places in the Bible, but the greatest one in my mind is when David says it to Goliath. 

In 1 Samuel 17, David who's the smallest and youngest among the troops of Israel stands up against the Philistine giant, Goliath, who could eat David for breakfast. However, it wasn't David's faith in HIMSELF that made him believe he could defeat Goliath, but in God. We see this when he says in 1 Samuel 17:47 Everyone gathered shall see that the Lord doesn't save by sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. The battle before David wasn't favorable toward him at all. There were so many ways he could lose and be destroyed or be stricken by fear and give up. Those would be the possible outcomes if he kept his eyes on Goliath, but David chose to place his eyes on God and place the battle in HIS hands. 

 If you're tired and worn out, it's probably because you haven't been allowing God to fight for you. You're trying as hard as you can to fight this battle, but really anxiety, fear, worry, and discouragement are whipping your tail in the ring. God says THE BATTLE IS HIS. Stop trying to move God's hand this way or that way. Stop trying to find the loop hole or easy pass out of the battle. The spiritual Goliath is wearing you out and his minions, fear, worry, discouragement are stealing your hope. The song You Know My Name by Tasha Cobb really ministered to me today and the lyrics below really stuck out. I know what it's like to try to fight Goliath on your own, but it's time to give it to the real warrior, our Father in heaven. 

 No fire can burn me 

No battle can turn me

 No mountain can stop me 

'Cause You hold my hand 

And I'm walking in Your victory 

'Cause Your power is within me

 No giant can defeat me 

'Cause You hold my hand 

 May your hope be in Jesus Christ, 

 Anreka 

 Tell me how this Hope Letter helped you in the comments below! Are you struggling to maintain HOPE? Herpes To Hope Lockscreens will help you see daily reminders of God's hope and help you when those negative thoughts come! Get your Hope Lockscreen TODAY! Click Below! 

 

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Does God's Love Cost?

Dear Beloved,

God's love is ABSOLUTELY FREE. 

How do I know this? He says it in His word: I will heal their backsliding and love them FREELY for my anger is turned away (Hosea 14:4). It's not a hoax. God's love is absolutely free and any teaching that tells you otherwise is full of lies. Whether it's lies we've heard from other people, other religions, or the enemy speaking to our own minds, many of us hold the assumption that God's love costs something. Some may say in order to access God's love you have to accept Christ, well technically not really because the Hosea verse above was written long before the birth and sacrifice of Christ. God said He will love the children of Israel FREELY before they could ever accept Christ. It's actually BECAUSE of God's love that Christ came in the first place, as we read in John 3:16 For God so LOVED THE WORLD that He sent His only begotten son, and whosoever shall believe in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. It was God's FREE love that sent His son to be sacrificed for our sins. It's the reality of our sin that makes us feel like we owe God. We feel our sin has created a long tab with God and in order to really receive His love, we have to pay off the tab. False. 

God's love isn't a "thing" to posses, it's God's VERY BEING. That's why it's free, it's WHO HE IS. 1 John 4:16 says And we have known and believed the love that God has toward us. God IS love.. We can look at the sun as an analogy. The sun doesn't just give light, it IS light and because it is light it gives light. Similarly, because God IS love, therefore He gives love and gives it freely to all mankind. I didn't understand this when I was diagnosed with herpes in 2011. I believed I had to work for God's love and that I had to pay off that tab before I could REALLY experience His love. Although I lived a life of sin, I felt like I wasn't as "bad as other people".  I thought I may not have God's love, but I'm at least in His "good graces". I believed I was in "good graces" because I worked to stay away from the "extreme sins". With this belief system, it was easy for the devil to lie to me and tell me I was cut off from God when I contracted herpes. I believed God's love was dependent upon me, so when I contracted herpes, I believed I lost the "good graces" and I had no chance at His love. ALL LIES!

As we see in God's word, HE LOVES FREELY and these words were written LONG before any of us were born. Just as the sun won't stop shining based on what we do, God's love won't stop because it's who HE IS. Wherever you are in life, if you believe God's love costs you, I'd like to denounce that false belief right now. You can't pay for the character of God. Even if God's love did have a price, it'd be one that no human being could ever afford. 

God's love is completely free, however experiencing a full relationship with God in this earth and in eternity after we die does cost. To be in relationship with God is to become ONE with Him. God is love because God is HOLY. That's what make His love so special and out of this world, it's actually perfect through His holy character that has never been tainted. The bible says we are born into sin (Psalm 51:5). This means every human being on the earth is a sinner from birth, our sins make look different, but we ALL have sinned. This sin is a violation of holiness, perfect goodness. In order for God to become one with us in relationship, we too must be holy so we don't violate God's perfect holiness. There's a cost to becoming holy, but guess what? Because of God's FREE love, He paid that cost for us!! That's why He sent Jesus to die on the cross. God wanted a relationship with us more than we did with Him. He wanted one so bad, that rather than placing the responsibility on us to pay the cost of holiness and attempting to rid ourselves of sin, He came from heaven in the form of Jesus and paid the cost for us! Every payment of our sin, every penny that you could ever owe God was paid through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ! Hallelujah! God's free love means anyone can enter a relationship with Him once they accept the payment Jesus did on their behalf.   

Beloved, you are not cut off from God's love. God will always continue to be who He is to you. If you desire to enter that glorious relationship with Lord and ensure your soul will spend eternity with Him all you have to do to ask for forgiveness of your sin. No, not every single individual sin you've ever committed since you were born. God is so gracious, if we just ask Him to forgive us of ALL our sin, one time, His word says HE WILL FORGIVE US (1 John 1:9). Once you receive that forgiveness, that indebted feeling you had will go away because Jesus paid the entire price for your sin. You and God will be one through Jesus Christ and your life will never be the same. I know this because that's what the Lord did for me January 2, 2012. God's love is free my dear. He loved you yesterday, He loves you today, and He'll love you tomorrow. 

May your hope be in Jesus Christ,

Anreka 

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The Devil Attacks Because He's After Your Future

Dear Beloved,

When the enemy attacks, he's not after the thing he's attacking in our life, he after the table God has before us. Psalm 23:5 says God will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies; God will anoint your head with oil until your cup runs over. A prepared table is a symbol of honor and provision. God has a plan to use you to His glory, honor you, and provide and He wants the enemy to see it all. That table will mock the enemy who's been mocking you. It will shame the one that's been shaming you. The devil will have to watch as you are anointed, as God seals you and call you HIS OWN. This is the last thing the devil wants, so he attacks. 

In 2011, the devil saw how bound I was living for him already. God tried to separate me from the guy I contracted herpes from BEFORE I contracted (didn't know he had it the whole time). Things shifted in the relationship and it seemed like it was over. If I followed God's leading and left the guy alone, who knows what would've came next for me. Would I have given my life to Jesus that year? Would I have started a life changing relationship with the Lord? I don't know, but the moment I had the opportunity to be with the guy again I took it and contracted herpes. God wanted to save me, He wanted to free me. There was a table God had and the devil wanted to block me from it. Satan struck me with spirit of herpes to make my body ill, but the greater reason was to block me from God. Right after I received the diagnosis, I started to blame God and say He's punishing me as most people do. Then I stopped talking to God because I believed He wanted nothing to do with me. That what the devil wanted. He wanted me isolated and depressed. He wanted me to give up. He wanted me no where near that table God had for me in His presence. But look at the irony of God. The VERY THING satan used to deter me from God, is the thing God used to save me! The devil mocked me with the spirit of herpes. He sent that demon to shame and depress me. Yet God turned it around and used the enemy's weapon against him as I clicked on that woman's herpes healing testimony January 2, 2012. For the first time I was introduced to the love of Christ and God anointed me at his table! 

The devil's strategy never changes. Even as believer now, he's STILL after the future table God wants to set up in my life. In every season, there's a table God's trying to get us to in the next season. There's something God wants you to do, someone He wants you to reach, something He wants to free you from, but if the devil can attack your body, mind, family, circumstances to discourage you from getting there, he will. I encourage you to read Psalm 23:4-6. The valley in verse 4 is symbolic of all the attacks that are trying to kill you and take you out. But, RIGHT AFTER the valley, there's the TABLE God has prepared for you. God is waiting for you at that table in your next season. LEAN on His rod and staff of comfort and realize what the enemy's doing. Stand up in the word of God and declare Psalms 23:4-6 over your life. God IS preparing a table before your enemies, you WILL be anointed, and goodness and mercy SHALL follow you, in Jesus name!

May your hope be in Jesus Christ,

Anreka

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Restoration of Hope

Dear Beloved,

Has your hope taken a hit? Maybe you don't feel completely hopeless, but you sense in your heart there are some areas where you're wondering: can God really do this? If so, you're not alone. The past month has been extremely hard for me. There was a lot of heaviness and sadness and it wasn't until last night that I realized part of my sadness was because my hope had taken a hit in a few areas. I still believe God to be God, but in my subconscious, I've been thinking can He really move over these things or are they just what they are? 

I found myself thinking about the generations of black slaves in America. If there was any group of people that knew about great trials and tribulations it was them. I said, "God, HOW did they hope? HOW did they keep going?" For the first generation of slaves, the end of slavery would be hundreds of years away, yet they still had a desire to marry and have children, and even smile once those children were born. How can a people still desire these things, when it seems like life would never get better? Everything was dark around them, yet they continued to bring life to: children, traditions, teachings, and so much more. 

A day or two after asking God this question, I came across a tweet by Jackie Hill Perry that said: 

"Negro spirituals are the perfect soundtrack for our times.

They, unlike the hymns written by white Christians, had lyrics born out

of deep suffering.To sing as they did was to put their pain into song while

reminding each other of a man named Jesus who would soon take them home."

There was God's answer to me: They worshiped. So, then I went to look up these spiritual songs, which I've only heard in passing. In my search, I found a song called Go Down Moses, where the lyrics speak to the children of Israel being enslaved in Egypt and Moses telling Pharaoh to let the people go. We see this account in the Bible. So, in singing this song, the black people that were enslaved, reflected on how God used Moses to free the children of Israel from their slavery. They found hope in what God did before and believed He could do it again. I found another song called Hold On, that speaks to holding onto the plow (a farming tool). This is a reference to a scripture in the Bible where Jesus tells us no one who holds the plow and keeps looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Essentially, looking back is representative of taking your hand off the plow. The plow represents the mission in life God has for us. The black Americans that were enslaved remembered to hold on and that God still had purpose for them and we see it in the generations they birthed, the traditions they passed down, the teachings of hope, and the wealth of songs rooted in God's word. 

Each week I write to you testifying about God's hope through His word, but it seems in the past month I was thinking maybe there was something else that helped these mighty people in history. I was blessed when I saw they found hope in the very thing that's been giving me hope since I got saved in 2012. After this, I went to the Bible in 1 Thessalonians 5:8, which says, But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. Salvation means to save, even deeper God saves. My hope ought to be rooted in the fact that GOD SAVES. Not only can He save me from my sin (which is the greatest miracle of all), but He can save the other areas I was questioning from before. God Saves, period. 

This was refreshing to see that my hope comes from the basis of my salvation. If God can save me, He can save or redeem anything. Now that I'm reminded of that, I have to deal with the areas of hope in me that took a hit. Hope isn't something I can go to the store and buy, but it belongs to God and is a gift from God. With that, I need God to restore my hope in the areas it's taken a hit, that means prayer. So last night I started to do that, I named the areas God revealed to me where my hope weakened and I began praying for Him to restore. I encourage you to do the same. If your hope has taken a hit, pray for God to replace the hope that was lost. It doesn't mean you're evil or you've lost your faith. Sometimes in life we take a hit, or a couple of hits and God is there waiting for our prayer of restoration. The Lord is with you beloved and He can restore our hope. 

May your hope be in Jesus Christ,

Anreka

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