Written By: Lanissa Reale
‘And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God’ Exodus 20:1-5
I just finished a 21 Day Fast to begin this new year, and throughout this Fast the Lord has been challenging me to ask myself the question “where are you dwelling?” Where am I spending most of my time, my mind space, my emotions? In the truth of the Lord, or in something else?
I have been fasting tv at night so that I could go to bed earlier and wake up earlier to spend time with the Lord. And to be honest? I LOVE MY SLEEP! That’s the reason I chose to fast what I did, because my desire to “snooze” was becoming greater than my desire to spend time with the Lord! Ha! Can anyone relate?!
Do you have something like that in your life? Something that has become almost a norm that you find yourself more willing to do that thing then dwell in the truth of the Lord? Whether it’s hitting the snooze button 10 times, dwelling in a negative emotion for too long, cancelling commitments so you can stay home instead? Etc. I think we all do.
And the more I read this scripture, I realized that these idols the Lord talks about aren’t always so obvious. Sometimes they are excessive sleep. Sometimes they are living in fear. They really are anything that keeps our focus off of God and our heart in a different place.
I want to encourage us to dig a little deeper. To not just choose to pursue Him completely during the fast, but to begin to remove things in our lives so that we can continue to do so after the fast!
You see Becoming is not just attending Church and gleaning from other’s Revelations, Becoming is getting to EXPERIENCE Jesus. We get that opportunity girls! And it’s huge. And the Lord sent His Son so that we could experience Him. We have access to Him, not when we have behaved correctly- not when we have stopped sinning. Our sin, our shortcomings no longer separate us from our Holy Father. We can come, whenever we decide to.
But let us not be confused. Because of this immense and freeing access to a relationship with the Father- the enemy will do anything he can to try and keep you from that freeing relationship. Place other things in our eye sight. Try and push other things in your focus. Things that at first may even seem good. Sneaky Idols.
But our focus, when placed on anything other than our loving God, is misplaced.
I don’t want my heart to be focused on anything but Him. Because I know what happens when that becomes the case. Your heart and soul were meant to be focused on only one thing. And as hard as it may be at first, you can do it. You were made for it!
You were made for freedom sweet girl. And it is available for you!
And we want to be here to help you!! Let’s do this journey of life as young women together!
Let’s CHAT below:
What has become a sort of idol in your life recently? What are some practical ways that you can begin to be disciplined in not giving in to those things? Let’s chat in the blog comments below!
Until Next Time
~ Lanissa Reale
(lanissareale.wordpress.com)
Uniquely Yours Ministries 