Cart 0
Cart 0
Christian Communicator
Photo May 15, 5 59 59 AM.jpg

“WHEN JESUS IS ALL YOU HAVE, YOU FIND OUT HE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH”

Ashley Morgan Jackson

Invite Ashley to speak

 

More great content to check out….

 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration!

Ever felt like you were getting further away from where you thought God was taking you? Surely there has to be a more direct way than this? What does this place have to do with where I thought we were headed and why is this taking so long? I have.⁣ ⁣ When the Lord set His people free from their slavery in Egypt there was a much more shorter way to the place He wanted to take them but Scripture says He knew they weren’t ready so He took them to wander to get them there.⁣ ⁣ In Exodus 13:17-18 it says,⁣ ⁣ “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” Also in Deuteronomy 8:2 says, ⁣ ⁣ “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands”⁣ ⁣ The wilderness is not a fun place, a glamorous place, or a place of abundance but it is a necessary place.⁣ ⁣ Even though it was a wandering they hated and took so long, God had to use it to teach them dependance on Him. They needed to learn who their source was, and so do we.⁣ ⁣ Every day they walked when God moved and stopped when He stopped. They waited for their food and gathered just enough for that day, they whined and complained and weren’t sure this wandering was better than their slavery but all these instructions were for their good if only they could trust Him.⁣ ⁣ So many times we are looking for a way out and the Lord is asking us to radically lean in and depend on Him. ⁣ ⁣ He has to prepare us for the good land He is taking us to and teach us who it is that got us there.⁣ ⁣ “He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you.” Deuteronomy 8:15-16 #walkingreflections
Do we fear the Lord?⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Not are we afraid of Him but walking in fear of Him means that we bow our knee to His authority when our ways don’t match His. Fearing Him is a constant confession of “you are God and I am not.”⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ In our current culture this is not always popular. It’s almost encouraged to do the opposite, to try and make God fear us. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ When God’s Word makes us feel uncomfortable we want A god that makes us feel good, a god we can control, a god we can understand, a god that will always keep us as the central theme. We want a god made in our image and not the other way around.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ This is not the God of the Bible, the all consuming fire who stands in glorious authority over all things, who if He showed up in all His majesty we would be gloried to death. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ There is a song by Nichole Nordeman that says, “let me not forget to tremble. Face down on the ground do I dare to take the liberty to stare at you. Oh let me not forget to tremble.” ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ And while we have Jesus who has made a way for us to approach God and satisfied His wrath with His sacrifice for us, He is still worthy of our tremble of our surrender, of our honor.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ “And I fall on my face with angels and saints and all I can say is Holy Holy Holy are you God. My heart can’t contain the weight of your name and all I can say is Holy Holy Holy are you God!” Throne Room
If you could have heaven with all the amazing things it had to offer with all your friends and family, no sickness or pain and everything was perfect but Jesus wasn’t there, would you take it?⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ This was the question posed by Francis Chan in a sermon I heard recently and it’s a powerful one.⁣⁣ We all say being a Christian is having a relationship with Christ but it can become so easy to forget that we never have a relationship with someone or love someone, because of what they can do for us alone, but because we want to be with them, love them, enjoy them. ⁣ Jesus loves us, He loves us before we even thought to choose Him back, He is for us, He sets us free and blesses us far beyond what we deserve, even if He never did one more thing He did enough on that cross.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Our whole lives should be in pursuit now of chasing this One, to know Him, to meditate on His beauty, to wonder at His awesomeness, to focus on His love and to never be more in love with the gifts than the giver of those gifts.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Lord, let our greatest hearts desire to be to walk in greater intimacy with you every day of our life. Give us more of you, everything we want is found in you alone. #walkingreflections ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣
The best way to get the help we need as we walk through a dark and difficult road, while waiting on God, is to choose to look at all He is doing rather than all He has yet to do. We can remind ourselves of the seemingly impossible situations we've been in in the past and how God has shown up over and over again! As the quote says, "While you wait for God to open a door, praise Him in the hallway!" 🙌🏼 #walkingreflections “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD!” Psalm 31:24
When the Israelites finally went into their promise land, after all that wandering, you would think that's when things were easy. They went from having to depend on God daily for food, having to wander around the desert year after year, snake bites and the ground opening and swallowing people, to a land flowing with milk and honey. Sounds good to me. It was, they ate from the land immediately but there were still enemies on that land that they were going to have to fight. Where God is calling you is a good land, the place He has for you, but that doesn't mean you won't have to fight. It doesn't mean that He won't ask you to do something by faith that makes no sense to you or makes you feel unsure, march around a wall seven times sound familiar? Living by faith means risk, it means possible failure, it means looking like a fool and trusting God in the unknown. It means knowing our limitations but knowing even more the power of our God. Our obedience when things make the least sense matters. He's not going to give you multiple choice, He's waiting for you to take action on the last thing He told you to do. People are watching, show them what walking with God really means. #walkingreflections
The Enemy will lie to us and tell us God wants nothing to do with us because we aren’t living up to His expectations, we’ve let Him down again and so we stay far away and let coldness and walls build in our hearts towards God. That liar convinces us that God rejects us and we nod in agreement and understand and perhaps we presume we deserve rejection, and so running to God feels risky in the face of the possibility of a cold shoulder or disappointed gaze. But God is that Father in the prodigal son story. Even when the son had wronged his father and found himself crushed under the weight of his mistakes, when that Father saw his son daring to return, He didn’t wait... He ran to him. Not to scold him or tell him, “I told you so!” but to celebrate his return. We will never really understand God’s grace and mercy, getting what we don’t deserve and not getting what we do. But we don’t have to fully grasp it to live in gratitude of it. We can run back to our Father with all our broken pieces, lay them at His feet and be loved again. Let’s not waste time groveling, beating ourselves up, or keeping our distance. We can know He is waiting for us with anticipation and expectation. Let’s run to Him, repent and allow ourselves to be loved not because we’re perfect but because He is. #walkingreflections The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. Luke 15:22-24