Hello, I'm Tammy Toney-Butler. Welcome to Reflective Hour. I'm your host today, but we all know who your host is, and that's Christ. Christ who is living and breathing. He is alive in all of us as His believers, His true church, those who know His voice, His whisper, those who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.
Holy Spirit, I invite you into this hour, into this time that we have together to reflect, to reflect on what You want us to know as we go forward to weather yet another storm, to get through another day, to get through another minute, even because sometimes that's all you can do, is live minute by minute.
(Pause, Be still)
Just relax and rest. Rest on the promises of His Word. Rest in Him, for He is waiting.
Waiting for you to come to Him as a Comforter, Helper, and Advocate.
He set me free, and He can set you free.
Let's see what He has for us today as we grab our coffee or tea.
As we get comfortable, and let Him guide us.
I come to you today with a Word.
A Word to help all of those of you who are in doubt, doubting that the promises He spoke over your life will come true.
Doubting that you're on your purposeful path, doubting that financial security will come.
Those of you who serve Him with all of your capacity yet still see a drought in your finances, in your circumstances. You're facing trials, tribulation even, and in some parts of the world, persecution, but He is with you. He is with You because He is the light, and He's in the light.
He wants you not to doubt. He wants you to know that He has you, and even in your darkest hour, He is with You.
He bore that shame, that guilt, that depression, that anxiety. He bore so many things for us because they go along with sin; they go along with past hurts, generational soul ties, and ties to the darkness instead of the Light. And He wants you to see Him, as He's in the Light. Don't look at your circumstances; look at Him.
Are you going to be someone who doubts, or are you going to be someone who holds steadfast in their faith, even when they see no way out of the situation? They know they need a miracle.
They must have the mighty move of God to change, to change their circumstances, their life. Their child may be struggling with addiction; their husband has an anger problem.
The person they work with is so difficult to sit beside and next to, but they have to because they're the provider for their family.
How many of you are balancing God's call on your life ; with the charity He birthed inside you? You're struggling, trying to do His work, even turning your own homes into houses for your charity, His charity, to do what He's called you to do: feed the orphans, feed the hungry, feed the widows, watch out for those oppressed, depressed, cast away by society.
How many of you are struggling? Giving of yourself so much that you have no Living Water to pour out to others. As there's such a drought.
There were doubters in the Bible, and there were times when we all doubted. Even as believers, we doubt. We're flesh, you know. We wrestle against spirits, and spirits come at us every day; as it says in Ephesians 6, you should put on your body armor.
You put your body armor; you plead the Blood of Jesus over your life, over your finances, over that drought. And you refuse to cater to that doubt.
And as we look in the Bible and go to Luke, we look in Luke 1, when Mary visits Elizabeth, there were doubters. There have been doubters.
We look back to Abraham when God told him he would be a father in old age. He had doubts. That's in Genesis 17:17.
Sarah, when she heard she would be a mother in old age, Genesis 18:12.
Moses, when God told him to return to Egypt to lead the people, Exodus 3:10-15.
The Israelites, whenever they faced difficulties in the desert, Exodus 16:1-3.
Gideon, when told he would be judge and leader, Judges 6:14-23.
Zechariah, when told he would be a father in old age, Luke 1:18.
And Thomas, when told Jesus had risen from the dead, John 20:24-25.
Many people God used to accomplish great things started as real doubters (Life Application Study Bible NIV Version).
With all of them, God showed great patience. Honest doubt was not a bad starting point as long as they didn't stay there.
How great a part does doubt have in your willingness to trust God, to follow God, and to change your circumstances (Life Application Study Bible NIV Version)?
Are you in an abusive marriage? A relationship? Are you tethered to something that you know is destroying you?
Are you doubting that you can break off an addiction?
Are you doubting that you can break off other forms of darkness, other dark areas of your life, maybe even a porn addiction?
Do not have doubts. Christ is with you, and He can save you. He's, He's there. He's waiting to do a work in us. And the first step is to stretch out our hand for healing, seek Him, and seek the Cross.
When Mary said, " From now on, all generations will call me blessed, " was she being proud? No, she was recognizing and accepting the gift God had given her. If Mary had denied her incredible position, she would have been throwing God's blessing back at Him. Pride is refusing to accept God's gifts or taking credit for what God has done.
Humility is accepting the gifts and using them to praise and serve God. Don't deny, belittle, or ignore your gifts. Thank God for them and use them to His glory (Life Application Study Bible NIV Version).
And we look at Luke 1, and we start with Luke 1:39 when Mary visits Elizabeth.
39: At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,
40: where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.
41: When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42: In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
43: But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44: As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
45: Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
[I love to read the Word; it's so yummy.]
Mary’s Song
46: And Mary said:“My soul glorifies the Lord
47: and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48: for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49: for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50: His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51: He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52: He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53:He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54: He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55: to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
56: Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
What does that speak to you?
Does that erase your doubt?
For God keeps His promises. He will come through. He will see you through that desert experience, that wilderness experience.
You will experience His goodness and all that He has to offer.
But you have to put the Kingdom of God first.
When He tells you to take up your Cross and follow Me, are you obeying, or are you rebelling? What has He asked you to do that you said no to because of your bank account balance or your credit card balance?
Today is Giving Tuesday, and there are nonprofits out there that are struggling that are trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And yet, so many are not tithing, not even five dollars, nothing.
If you can't be the hands and feet, maybe He's called you to be the provider of the provision, to help someone get out of that drought, to help someone carry on despite the obstacles in their path.
What is He saying to you today?
Is He saying to open your wallets and contribute to His Children?
Is He saying to trust Him? If you're one of those nonprofits that are waiting on that donation to come in so that you can balance your books, pay the creditors, keep the food coming in to feed the hungry, to feed His children, to serve them when they come to you for healing.
Are you one of those who has answered the call and is waiting, trusting, hoping, and believing that your miracle is coming and that doors opening?
Are you refusing to have doubts? Are you praising Him in the middle of your storm? That's what we have to do. We have to praise Him. We have to trust. We have to obey and surrender. We have to have faith and refuse to cater to doubt, refusing to give in to those negative thoughts in our mind and the devil saying, " You're not going to make it. You can't do it. " We can't doubt forever. We have to move into a position of trust- blind, steadfast, obedient trust. Knowing that He's coming through, knowing that that door is opening, knowing that that miracle is coming, knowing without a doubt that He's got us protected and tucked under His Wing.
This was not the message I intended, but when I reflected on all the troubled times and hard times when I didn't know how to keep the ministry going and had no money, I faced a drought. I had to trust. And sure enough, every time a donation would come right in, that would carry us through a little longer, a little longer, and a little longer because everything we have is His.
Many of you know I sold everything to follow God. Our house on the golf course, our sailboat, so many things. And He moved us to this 10-acre parcel of land, and it's a beautiful lake, and it's like Psalm 23 has come alive. with the still waters and the green pastures. But it's more than that for me. He fulfilled a promise because as a survivor of trauma, as someone who had complex PTSD and Christ set her free when He calls you into the uncomfortable, the unknown, then that sense of you having to control everything can pop up.
And I realized I never had control over anything. I was a child. I couldn't control what happened to me. I couldn't control that my mother allowed me to be victimized and hurt, sold, and used as a commercial product to get the rent paid.
I could not control any of that. So many are facing those trials today that we can't control. And when we get in circumstances to where we are out of control and know that someone else must deliver us out of Egypt, that we have to rely on God Almighty, that He's the only One, Christ is the only one that can deliver us from addiction, that can deliver us from depression, that can deliver us from bondage.
That's calling us to have trust. A lot of us have a hard time trusting: trusting a father because we never had one, or the one that we had abandoned us or was an alcoholic or abuser. So we have that orphan spirit, that spirit of abandonment that runs so deep that it affects every decision we make.
I rebuke and bind it in Jesus' name and cast it into the pit. I rebuke and call back any lie ever spoken over your life in Jesus' name, for you are fearfully, beautifully, and wonderfully made daughters and sons of the King. You can be made whole. You can step into the uncomfortable.
When my husband and I sold our home, we had nowhere to go. We didn't know where we were headed. Fortunately and gratefully, we were able to move in with his parents for a time. I'd never lived with anyone since the abuse, and I had promised that I would not be hurt again, especially after I got out of another abusive marriage and relationship. I knew that I had to control my environment and surroundings.
Yet here's God calling me to let it all go—that facade of control. And then, He stripped me of all my income. I was not nursing anymore—or very, very little as a sexual assault nurse examiner. I was making below the poverty level—cause I chose to. I chose to follow Him. To trust. And obey. And I look at the land, the promises that He's kept.
I should not be here, but He fulfilled His promise. He's going to fulfill yours. He will give you exceedingly abundantly, more than you could ask for, think, or imagine. But you have to trust and stretch out your hand for healing. Put your foot in the Red Sea. Go where He's calling you to go. Do what He's calling you to do.
March to victory. Start that non-profit. Give to that non-profit. Give to the one thats calling to you, that you know does good work, the one that's truly the hands and feet of Jesus.
Seek Him. He's waiting. Repent of your sins. Know that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died on the Cross so we could be set free and rose again.
He rose again and gained victory over sin.
For those of us who've been just existing, spiritually dead, walking around, never truly living, He offers life, hope, trust, peace, joy, and freedom- freedom from addiction, freedom from so many things. Just trust, as I did, and walk blindly and obediently.
Rebuke that spirit of rebellion, that spirit of control, that orphan spirit, that abandonment spirit. Let it all go. He died so you could be set free, and you don't need to carry any of that anymore. Not where He's taking you. Not with that ministry He's birthing inside of you.
Not with the work you have left to do for the Kingdom; it is harvest season, and the laborers are few. Stand firm in the winds of change, and see where He blows you to next.
Where will the wind take you? Where will your sails shift you to? In what direction will He guide you?
Freedom lies in the wind, in the ability to change focus, shift, reposition yourselves, and recognize that maybe you're going down a path that served you for a season but doesn't serve you any longer. You have to trust, step out in faith, knowing He will provide, knowing He will provide; He has provided for me on so many occasions.
He'll provide. He's the Way Maker, the Truth Bearer, and the Promise Keeper. He's our Abba Father. He's waiting.
Repent, turn back to Him, seek Him, trust in Him, be obedient to Him, and believe.
No doubt. No doubt. Just believe. Just have faith. Because that is what faith is for.
I've enjoyed our time together on Reflective Hour.
Let the Holy Spirit guide you this day, keep you, and set you free from the chains of addiction, bondage, and darkness. And untether you from anything stopping you from walking along that narrow path of righteousness for His name's sake.
