Today I am preaching to myself more than anyone else — I need to hear this (especially now – it has been a very hard week!)

Romans 8:1 says:  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live and walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.

Many of you don’t know that my ministry, The Encouragement Center, was started almost twelve years ago with the name “Romans 8:1 Ministries”.   My heart was, and always will be, to tell people that God is good and that He loves them and does not condemn them!  He came to save, not condemn.

When you have bad days, setbacks and disappointments, it is normal to hear “you are an idiot”, “you can’t do anything right”, “no one loves you”, and “who do you think you are to think it will work out for you?”  The devil loves and lives to heap condemnation upon God’s children; he is the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10) .  It is up to us to refuse to accept it – no matter how realistic is appears, no matter how hard it is to resist.

When a child is learning to walk, he falls many times before he has the confidence to walk across the room.  Even though he may cry when he falls down, he gets back up and tries again (and again, and again) until he succeeds.

When you have those bad days (or bad weeks or bad years), just get back up, dust yourself off and start again!

The devil will try so hard to stop you.  He will use discouragement, circumstances, people (yes, even Christians) and condemnation to halt you in your tracks.  When he does, you have your weapon — it is the WORD!  Say to the devil, “Hey you, I walk after the Lord and there is no condemnation toward me, no matter what you say!”

When you fall and fail (and you will, trust me), that doesn’t mean you are a failure.  It simply means you don’t do everything right.  We all have to realize we have strengths and weaknesses, and none of us is perfect except for Jesus.  Don’t let that imperfection stop you from going boldly to the throne of your Father and asking Him for what you need.  Don’t let it keep you from believing you will receive that which you have asked!

Let Jesus be your strength.  We have nothing else — but, what more do we need?!

Be encouraged, God is for you and so am I!

Years ago I learned about praying specifically.  There are times I forget about it and just throw up mostly impotent “help me, Lord” prayers.  Yet, if Jesus came to my door today and said “What can I do for You?” would I say, “Just help me!”?  NO!  I would tell Him specifically what I need.  Another thing I would do if He was at my door is:  I would believe with no doubt that He would answer me!

Dave and I found a specific prayer list we did up back in 2003.  It was encouraging to see that over 85% of that prayer list had been answered – most were answered over and above what we had prayed!  That encouraged us to recently pray specifically again.  We are already seeing answered prayer.

Not that there is any “magic formula”, but there are steps of order and faith that God honors as long as your heart is right:

• Write down the prayer requests specifically.  (Habakkuk 2:2 – Write the vision and make it plain.)
• Pray over the prayer requests and give thanks to the Lord.  (Phil 4:6 – Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.)
• Sow a seed into good ground as an act of faith, and be about your business.  (Eccles 11:6 – Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all day, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another – or maybe both.)
• Stand in faith and don’t allow the doubt to come in, no matter what it looks like.  (James 1:6 – But let him ask in faith, with no doubting.)

Often, as the Lord leads, I will do communion over the requests.

If you have any prayer requests you’d like to have me come into agreement with you for, please confidentially email me at tina@tinamarino.com

For a very good sermon on praying specifically, please go here  www.jsmi.org and click on: The Prayer of Petition.

Be specific!  Be blessed! 

It is a fact that when I get off-track by spending too much time listening to the news, the gloom and doom, the economic horror stories, and the tales of woe, I can end up working myself into a tizzy.  I hear stories of people I know and love who are going through hell with their finances.  They are losing their houses.  They are doing all they know to do and it is not getting any better.  There is no relief in sight.  It grieves me.  There are no pat platitudes to be pontificated; and there seemingly are precious few helpful answers.

Each day our ministry, The Encouragement Center, gets calls for financial help for bare necessities. The stories make me weep – so many good people in such need. Sadly, we have to turn away most because we don’t have enough resources to help them.  It is a sign of the desperate times in which people are finding themselves.  It is heart-breaking.

Personally, I find that when I am getting caught up in the stress and anxiety, fear starts to overwhelm me.  But, because the Word is in my heart, I am grateful that God always brings to remembrance what I need to hear when I need to hear it!  He is good that way!

Today, He prompted me to get my eyes back on Him, by a word spoken by another minister. He was talking about the dismal times and how God gave us a promise:

“For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” Matthew 6:8

While I may not have all the answers for myself, my family, my loved ones or the world, there is one thing I DO know: God loves us, He is a good God, and He will provide!  It is a choice I make to purposely bring my focus back to Him and His promises.  You have the same choice.  Are you going to focus on the bad or are you going to stay focused on Him?  If you stay focused on Him, you can stay steady in the midst of this storm.

If we don’t have a steady diet of the Word, it will not be there when we need it.  So I encourage you today, and every day, to put some Word in your diet!