God has been blowing my mind lately. I have always struggled with the idea of salvation and what the cross actually means. I have struggled to maintain my joy, basing it on my circumstances rather than the revelation of the cross and what Jesus did for me, for all of us. Once I grasped this revelation, the joy of knowing what Jesus did for me caused my attitude to go from below baseline to joyful.

               At the present time, I am currently unemployed and have no idea when I will have another job. But the thing that is different this time than the last time I was in a tight spot like this is peace and joy that transcend understanding. I know that God will provide for me and He will do that in ways that I can expect and ways that I never saw coming. Providence is one of the many perks of making God your friend and confidant.

               Providence is the protective care of God that can be given through guidance, foresight, and unexplained prosperity and abundance. When you have the favor of the Lord, things become easier than they would be if you didn’t have God in your corner.

“And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 28:2

Obey in Hebrew is Shema and it means to “listen and do, hear and answer, to render obedience.” God expects you to do two things above all else: Love Him with your heart, soul and strength and love people as you love yourself. Then, comes certain things that God will ask you to do because He knows it will progress you farther in life. For me, that includes waking up early in the morning to be with Him, having prayer before bed, and writing. It also includes staying away from certain things that God has asked me to stay away from because they are harmful to me in various ways like alcohol, cigarettes, and kratom. I also can’t get into TV shows or read fiction books until I grow more of my fruit of self-control.

These things are what He has freed me from or doesn’t serve me anymore. I doubt He will ever find it acceptable for me to smoke cigarettes again, but there may come a time when Holy Spirit tells me it’s okay to drink alcohol when going out occasionally or take kratom sparingly for pain. But for right now, this season is one of consecration and dedication to God. Those substances get in the way of all of that. I have also come to find that it’s not necessarily about the substance but if I use that substance for a crutch or a replacement for God. That’s when He really dislikes what it does to me. It consumes me.

               God longs to bless me, but He cannot bless me when I’m stuck in idolatry. So, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I will abstain from whatever He tells me to and do whatever I’m asked. I’m done with seasons of lack and poverty. My season of friendship, true friendship, with God will bring about prosperity and abundance so that I can be a blessing to others and not a nuisance like I have been.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33

               I can’t stress enough that it isn’t about earning His righteousness but accepting the righteousness that Christ won for you on the cross. When I walk in that knowledge, something shifts and I start walking in the Spirit and walking in love more easily than I can doing it in my own strength. It truly is about everything He has done and nothing about what I do because of the freedom He won for me so that I can call Him Abba and He can call me daughter. His grip on me at times is more than my grip on Him. No one can snatch me out of His hands.

“I give to them the gift of eternal life and they will never be lost and no one has the power to snatch them out of my hands. My Father, who has given them to me as His gift, is the mightiest of all, and no one has the power to snatch them from My Father’s care.” John 10:28, 29 (TPT)

               When I remember this simple truth, I remember that it doesn’t matter what I do right or what I do wrong, what matters is the cross. What comes from the cross is freedom, sonship, and a relationship with the God who created the heavens and the earth. When you fixate on this truth and stay in close proximity to the Holy Spirit, you receive eternal life and walk in a completely different way than you ever thought possible.

“Eternal life means to know and experience you as the only true God, and to know and experience Jesus Christ, as the Son whom you sent.” John 17:3 (TPT)