Unshackled Moments ~ September 30 ~ Give It Away, Give It Away Now

Jesus said that it is better to give than receive, and no one needs me to tell them that the One who is never wrong got it right. One of the reasons this is true is because of the paradigm shift that occurs in our motivations and desires once we discover relationship with our Creator and start our spiritual life anew. Selfishness and self seeking slip away as we turn our heart and attention to how to serve Him and help others.

There are things that simply don't sound right but are nevertheless true. You must die to find life, and you'd be better off dead. In order to be the best you that you've always wanted to be, content, full of joy, resting in peace while loving and being loved you have to put to death the will and desire of self and tying to meet these needs first and foremost in exchange for the will of God and the new spirit born of God within you. To find freedom you must surrender completely and unconditionally, and to keep what you have found, you must give it away. And we have come full circle back to the subject and truth that it is better to give than receive and it is by giving away what we have, our life and love and freedom and everything God has given us, that we find we have so much we can never run out, we always get more than we need back, so we can always give more.

When all we do is take and see what we can get from those around us, there comes a time when even those who love us will stop giving. Going through life trying to selfishly suck the marrow from life for our own pleasure and needs without giving back leads to us being surrounded by a bunch of dry bones and full of unmet need. But in giving we receive. When we give love and the other spiritual fruits that are produced in our life to those around us, freely and with a heart that simply wants to love and give for what it can do for others and for the glory of God, we will never be disappointed in what it does for us as well. I'm not talking about somehow that if you give 20% of your paycheck to some preacher that God is obligated to fill your bank account and you'll never be broke again. That's bogus heresy and not scriptural. There are times of famine, even for prophets who are walking with God in obedience and full of faith.

No, what I am talking about is that when the fruit that is grown from the seeds of faith is picked and given away, where it was picked from bears even more fruit in its place. It's like a hydra head, cut one off two grow back, only we're not talking about snake heads but more love, more joy, more peace, more patience, more of Jesus being evident in our life. More of the good things of God. And the way to get them and have them more and more is, as weird as it sounds, to stop worrying about getting more or any and stop seeking what seems or feels best for us but rather, as is stated in the Prayer Of St. Francis so well and often, let us instead seek to serve and give away those things we have been given and need. Jesus promised a life worth living, a life so abundant that there is plenty to share, because the purpose of life and the good things that come with it, is to share it and pass it on. Lay your life down. give it away with as much of the love and joy and the rest that God gave that you can find in your heart, and when you do you will see the miracle of life grow and produce fruit in the lives of those around you, and it will be awesome. And you will also discover that your jar never goes empty and your love and good things never run out.

Then the word of the Lord came to [Elijah], saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.” And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” So she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’” So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.

- I Kings 17:8-16

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Adoration

Dalyn Woodard shares on the first ACT of prayer. Why do we need to praise and worship God and how can it affect our prayer life.  The message, "Adoration" is about 41 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, September 28, 2016. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 29 ~ Loving Outward

We have reached the end of the requests for grace to turn our attention outward with the subject at the core of everything, love. Lord, help me seek more to love than to be loved. Of course, as with the other things we're asking to turn toward others, it does not imply that we do not need or desire love ourselves. To love and be loved is at the core of what drives us. It's when we do not have the understanding and awareness of God's love for us, the relationship from which all others is birthed, we begin to seek escaping that need or satisfying that drive with money or power or sex or chemicals or or or.

Without the love with which He first loved us, we would have no ability to love. The ability to love and the desire to be loved is one of the ways that we are made in the image of God/ Whether we believe in God or don't, whether we surrender to His lordship or insist on our own way, our natural ability to love our parents, our children, our romantic partner, our best friends and even our pets do not come from some innate evolved goodness in humanity. That ability exists because God, who is the very essence of love, made us in His image, designed from the beginning to love, to be loved and to increase through love.

Love is at the core of everything. It is the highest common denominator of humanity regardless of race, creed, sex, etc. It is when love has been twisted, turned only inward or eliminated from expression that the curse that keeps us and this world from being what we and it were created to be truly begins to be clearly seen. Then we see the anger, fear, hatred, selfishness, abuse, darkness and destruction that reign when love does not. This can be on a personal level or envelope societies as a whole. One day this misery will indeed come very close to dominating every inch of this planet, and if the Lord waits longer to return  than that point, we will surely destroy ourselves. So the need for love is as much a part of who we are as the DNA that controls our physique. It is as natural to seek to be loved as it is to seek oxygen.

But do we really seek oxygen? No. Unless it is absent, we don't even think about it. We simply take it in and take it for granted that as we go about our day we can breathe naturally without fear of not having enough air. It is only when we get in a situation where the oxygen is threatened or absent that we begin to think about how we can get more. We are so aware that oxygen is all around us that we do not even think about oxygen.

We can do the same with love. I'm not talking about taking it for granted or becoming so aware of its presence that we do not think of it at all, although that would not be as bad as going about unaware of it as we all too often do now. I am talking about being so aware and comfortable with the truth that we have the love of God, aware that Daddy loves us, in a real and personal and protective and transformative way. In every way that we need love, like oxygen, we have it in the love of the One who created us and is love. We can become so comfortable in that truth and aware of Him and His presence and His love for us, that we go through our day with no need or desire to pursue love. We do not have any need or thought to seek the love or approval of anyone, because we have it as surely as we have the oxygen our body needs. And that frees us up from the pursuit of love, or the pursuit of something to replace love, to the act of spending our day in communion and fellowship with Daddy, being a beacon of love, joy, peace, freedom, His power, His glory and His way of life to those we encounter. We can pursue the pleasure of loving outward, as Jesus did and does, so that we can give love to those who are spiritually asthmatic and do not realize that they can have the same easy breath of love as we do. We can show them Jesus instead of the needy, broken, people we were and are without Him.

Lord, help me to be aware of Your great love for me today, so that I do not feel the need to try to earn or seek Your love but simply to walk in it. Help me to walk so fully in the awareness of Your love that I do not need to seek the love and approval of people but instead can be an instrument of Your peace by being a distributor of Your love. Help me be a demonstration of the peace that comes from not having to struggle for or seek love and approval, but by grace and with the gift of faith accept the greatest love that is freely given, so that others who are still sick, broken and captive may see the way to freedom found in You. Amen.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 28 ~ Misunderstanding Understanding

Like many teens, I had posters on my wall as I grew up. One of my favorites was a picture of a tiger lying down and looking a little sad. The caption read Nobody Understands Me. My father hated that poster. His big issue was that it isn't and wasn't true. God understood me, He understands me, and He will always understand me. He understands you as well, He knows our innermost motives and secrets.

God knows those things about us that no one else knows and that we are ashamed of and hate about ourselves, and He understands why they are there, and why we do them even though we are ashamed and hate them. That means that He understands us better than we understand ourselves, because the only thing I understand about those things is that I am in need of His grace to be able to not do the things that I hate that I can't not do on my own. So there is no one that is totally misunderstood, just as there is no one who is unloved.

But that misunderstanding that I was understood was not the worst part of the message of that poster. Who do you think I thought about whenever I looked at that poster? Correct. No matter what was going on, no matter how good my day may have been going or if I was just waking up, when I  consciously saw that poster, I thought of myself and slipped into self pity. I can't say I simply slipped into self, because during that time of my life, I don't think I ever slipped out of self.

Seeking to be understood and insisting that others somehow understand us above all else is selfish. It is also, if we are honest, an excuse and manipulation to act selfishly. If you understood me and what I have been through/ am going through/ what I am facing you would understand why I messed up like that/ need to [fill in the blank with selfish, often destructive behavior]/ why I'm putting what I want above your needs, and you should just let me do it and not hold it against me or make me suffer any negative consequences. I sometimes wonder if I really wanted to be understood as much as I wanted to be excused and allowed to do what I wanted to do without consequence.

It also is a barrier to love, because seeking to be understood above all else builds a wall between us and others. That seems wrong, doesn't it? Shouldn't seeking understanding foster unity? Seeking understanding might bring people together, but seeking understanding for self and insisting on it as the basis for relationship causes separation. We don't always understand ourselves. How can we make understanding us be a prerequisite to relationship? We are told to look for the similarities and not to focus on the differences. Seeking to be understood rather than seeking to understand is the opposite of that.

Right now we have cities burning in pain and hate because for far too long we, as a country, have focused on the differences between us instead of looking at the similarities.  We have families being torn apart over differences of opinion and belief. The more the call goes out for understanding and tolerance, the more we seem to be getting ready to torch everything. Man's ideas on understanding have failed.

But Jesus understood. He loved, and He understood what was going on in the lives and hearts of everyone He encountered. And while that understanding didn't lead Him to excuse or ignore sin, it did allow Him to interject compassion into the lives of those who were hurting and in need. And He didn't go about His day, ministry and life demanding and seeking to be understood. He said you can't understand and know Me because you don't understand or know My Father to the religious leaders. And to the disciples and people who did begin to know Him, He said because you know Me, you also know Daddy. No one left an encounter with Jesus feeling like He didn't understand them.

Seeking to understand those we encounter helps to keep us out of self. It helps us to keep the focus on God and those we would help. It helps us to be quick to forgive when we understand that the person who hurt us is spiritually sick, wounded and broken like we were, and somewhat still are, since the result of our new life is not yet fully manifest. It helps us to be compassionate, like Christ was, with the losers and the lost we meet. It helps us to remember that understanding we could never be good enough or measure up, God made a way for us to have relationship with Him. If we can see and understand the needs of others, we can find a way to have relationship with them, which hopefully will lead to them seeing how they too can have relationship with the One we serve and who has set us free.

Lord, today, let us seek to understand those we encounter and how You would have us be of service to them. When it comes to ourselves, let us only seek to understand that we need and can rely on Your power and love to walk unselfishly through this day within Your will and demonstrating Your love. Let us remember that we can not and do not fully understand You or Your ways and yet seek relationship with You, and in like manner, we should seek relationship with others despite never being able to totally understand them or them us. Thank You for understanding us even better than we understand ourselves and loving us anyway.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments — September 27 — Winning The Consolation Prize

Have you ever met that person who always had to have the worst luck and the most misery? If someone has a cold, they're coming down with emphysema. If someone is explaining how they're having a hard day, they interject to show that not only has their day been harder and worse but it's been the same all week and there are no signs that it's going to get any better soon. No matter what the situation their cross is heavier and has more splinters than whoever they happen to encounter. Have you ever spent any time with that person? Have you ever been that person?

I wish I could say that I hadn't acted like that but I have. What about war stories? Ever seen two or more people gathered together in the name of recovery trying to outdo one another with tales of tragedy, destruction, danger and death? In the end no one is consoled and no one is helped. War stories were my weakness in the consolation department during early recovery until my mentor/advisor showed me that I wasn't so much helping by showing that I've been there too or using my experience to help others as I was trying to fit in and outdo and keep the spotlight squarely focused on me.

You can feel the difference between someone who shows that they can empathize with you because they've experienced the same or similar and someone who's pulling the attention back onto themselves. One reason it is so important to seek to console rather than to be consoled is because when we seek to console others first and instead of seeking that comfort and attention we're sacrificing self. It's not about me. It's about the person in need. That's how Jesus did it. That's how we need to do it if we want to be like Him. He comforted and drew others from their captivity and misery, and He never once did either by outdoing anyone's issues, sickness or sadness.

I've been to a lot of funerals over the years, but in truth I have very few memories of the services or afterwards. However there is one with a very vivid memory. When I used to work as a photographer for my local newspaper, part of the job included photographing wrecks. I remember the first fatality accident I showed up at where I knew the people. I live in a small city, and it was bound to happen sooner or later.

I recognized the motorcycle of my friend before I saw him. Brian lay in the intersection as the EMTs worked to save him, and I attempted to shield myself from the scene by seeing it only through the camera lens. For the first time this distancing trick didn't work well. It turned out I also knew the drunk who turned in front of him. The entire situation was a mess, and it affected me more than I knew until I realized the next day that I had misspelled my friend's last name throughout the article I wrote about the accident.

After Brian's funeral I went to give my sympathies to his mother and apologize for misspelling the family name. The woman who would more than a decade later become my mother-in-law did something I never expected or forgot. She gave me a huge hug and told me that she was sorry I had to see him like that. She comforted and consoled me. She left a mark on my life, and she had every reason to make it all about her and her loss and her pain that day.

It is good to get out of self, and one way to that is to be a servant and a tool for the One who is called The Comforter. Whether we realize our woe isn't actually the worst in the room or when it is, we can lessen the weight of self pity by turning our attention off self and seeking to comfort and help another.

Lord, let us learn to seek our comfort from You rather than from the attention of others, and let us be an instrument of Your peace by allowing the needs of others precedence over our own and trying, by Your grace and love, to ease them. Let us remember that winning the consolation prize means being Your comfort to another rather than being the selfish center of attention.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments — September 26 — Pollyanna

The story of Pollyanna is an example of being someone who sows joy where there is sadness. And I hesitate to use it because we so often see that character in a negative light. I have never heard anyone say be like Pollyanna, but I don't know how many times I've heard someone say don't be a Pollyanna.

If it's a mask, an effort on our own part to always be chipper then it can be both annoying and self deceptive. When times really become difficult the facade fractures into sadness and misery. It can also make it difficult to help others who are truly discouraged and in need because in the admonition to not be a Pollyanna is the idea to not be unrealistic. To be happy during a time of sadness seems rude and disrespectful. A person like that is either out of touch with reality or has failed to understand the situation.

But there's a difference between being happy and having joy. The story of Pollyanna does a decent job of showing that joy is so much about manufacturing happiness as it is about being glad in God. True joy that coexist with sadness and give us strength to endure the situation with peace and hope and even gladness that can diminish our sadness is inseparably tired to gratitude. Our gratitude in the goodness of God and our faith that He will keep His word and work everything to our God gives us joy, a joy that can be sown into the sadness around us.

Today let us pray to keep our eyes on Jesus and aware of God's goodness so that we can go through the day with a grateful heart and, let us sow the gladness that can't be shaken by circumstance into the sadness we encounter.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 23 ~ This Little Light

Oh Lord, as part of being an implement of Your peace, where there is darkness, let me spread light, the Prayer Of St. Francis continues. What a wonderful thing to ask for, what depths and breadths of meaning it can have, and what a responsibility to choose. We do well to ask for this, and we most assuredly need to remember to rely on grace as we go through the day, for we are quite incapable to do such a thing on our own.

When I picture this in my mind, since the prayer uses the metaphor of the sower, the idea that comes to my mind is spreading little seeds, perfect pockets of the pure light of God's love and truth. That is the light we need to sow. The solution to the darkness in and around us and that is covering the entirety of the Earth like a heavy toxic gas. There may be pockets of breathable air here and there, but we, as a planet. are going down in coughing fits of hate, fear and selfishness. So I imagine seeds of God's love and truth being sown and as they burst into bloom they burn off the toxicity and darkness near them like the rising sun burns away a heavy fog.

If we are going to be sowers of such seeds we need to protect from adding to the darkness or throwing out impure seeds that have been tainted with the mold of our own motives and selfishness. It needs to be God's light. Not any old positive light will do. Let's go back to the fog analogy. You can have a hundred people driving with their headlights on, using flashlights and even spotlights, and it doesn't help with defeat the fog one bit. It might even make it harder to see. But just a short while with the light of the sun and the fog begins to melt away. Our positive light, our wisdom, our kindness, our understanding might help illuminate the darkness a little, but it will never be able to dissipate and destroy it. Only God's light can do that. So we need to keep our light out of it.

This little light of mine needs to burn only with the light of Jesus, to destroy the darkness, illuminate the solution and to shine the glory on the God of love. This is light, not words. Everything we do, from the expression on our face as we walk through Wal-Mart to the way we act and react in person and in social media to the darkness we encounter, to the subtle micro-reaction we have with someone we run into or who asks for help or shows a need or who, sick from the toxic darkness, coughs their inconsideration, their selfishness, their hate, their fear, their anger, their poison in our face. What will they see when they look at us? Will they see another broken and sick human being or will they see the loving glow of God in our eyes? That's why we must rely on grace to have this prayer fulfilled in our lives. Because we are indeed broken and still sick in ourselves, but the spirit within us is born of God and pure and immune from the the poison produced by the curse.

Today, let us let our light shine, as long as, like the moon, our light is not truly ours but a reflection of the light that has shined on us, the light of the Son. Let us not fight or struggle with the darkness, but dispel it as we move through it, by grace, unhindered, because of the light that has set us free. And let us freely and lovingly expose the world that is still sick to the light that heals and defeats the dark and foggy fumes of the curse.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

ACTS Of Prayer

Dalyn Woodard explores the questions what is prayer and what is it's purpose?  The message, "ACTS Of Prayer" is about 56 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, September 21, 2016. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 22 ~ Tangible Proof

Faith is not the Christian translation of Abracadabra. It is not something we muster up within ourselves to make everything OK or go our way. It's not a talisman we wave so that we don't ever have to be afraid. It's not trusting without proof or blindly following anything or anyone without reason or thought.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

- Hebrews 11:1

Faith is the substance, the real material which has a solid, tangible presence, of hope. Faith is why we can have hope, because without a tangible, real, reason to hope, it's not hope. It's delusion. And it's not blindly following without evidence. It is the evidence. It's the leaves moving and the feeling of our hair affected by the breeze that proves the air is moving, even though we can't see it.

Faith is not a way to get God to do what we want Him to do for us. It's a gift from God that gives us the ability to trust Him and to do for Him what He wants from us. In the movie Days Of Thunder, Cole Trickle has a moment of panic and fear on the race track. His crew chief tells him that he can drive through the problem if he will do what he's told. Scared,Cole doesn't want to do it. Harry, the crew chief, tells Cole, "Go around those wrecks. You can drive through it. I know it in my heart." Of course, Cole drives through it, excitedly shouting that he made it and the fear that had gripped him disappears. But the fear didn't leave until he had driven through the wrecks on the track. That is faith.

It's also Hollywood and bogus. Harry may have believed in his heart, but he had no real way of knowing and no way to control or even to help the outcome.  God doesn't ask us to blindly and without thought or reason trust Him. He asks us to trust Him after much thought, with the only reasonable and logical response. When the crazy starts, when the danger looms, when the world is folding under the weight of the curse, we have one option of someone to turn to who has never lied to us, who has never manipulated us, who has never once told us things were going to be OK when he or she had no way of really knowing that, just to calm us down. There is only one person we can turn to who has the power to always do as He says He'll do and a flawless track record.

I trust my Dad. If he tells me that ice on a pond is frozen enough for me to walk on, I'll walk on it. I carried a canoe across a frozen lake once on his word. I might still be afraid, but I'd try the ice. I'd still be afraid for two reasons. One, I can't always control the fear within me. In fact, I usually can't. The assurance of someone I trust, like my father, may enable me to walk on out on the ice, but it doesn't erase the fear. The fear gets killed with every second I'm on the ice without it cracking. Once I am out there long enough to see that it's not going to break, I can relax. Once I am on the other bank I can feel no fear at all. I made it. And the next time it's easier to trust Dad. That's why I trust him at all, because he's proven himself trustworthy.

That's also the second reason the fear remains. My dad has proven that I can trust him. He's also been wrong. More than once. He's made mistakes. He's been right with me much more than he's been wrong, but....there's almost always that little nagging thought. What if he's wrong? But no matter what that voice says about my Heavenly Daddy, He's never been wrong before. He's never fallen short.The more I drive through the wrecks in my life on His word, the more I trust Him to guide me through them the next time. That means I keep going. I drive instead of stopping. But it doesn't mean there's no fear.

As the wrecks of life happen around us, and our instinct becomes to panic, we can trust our Daddy. That gives us a quietness about us and a peace that enables us to override fear and do what needs to be done, even if what is needed is for us to simply wait for God to move. That quietness can be spread to others and help us point to the grace and power of the One who gives that quiet, that lack of disturbance that keeps panic from ruling our actions and reactions.

Last Sunday I stepped back into the house from my mediation to find my wife a wreck. She was very upset and panicked. The paper she had been working on for school all week wasn't on the computer. She knew she saved it, but it was gone. She couldn't go to church. She had to start over and redo everything she had done. To make it worse, she had cleared her browser history the night before and had no record of the sites she had used for research. She was discouraged and defeated. I stayed calm by grace. I say grace, because I knew that I needed to be calm, but all I could think was how could I possibly fix this, how could I help? I sat down and began hunting for the paper. Slowly she began to calm down. She didn't have any real hope yet that I'd find it. Her fear was definitely still there. But the panic had died, and she began to be OK. After a few minutes I found the paper and she relaxed and immediately thanked God for His providence and His faithfulness.

That is one instance where I was able to be an instrument of God's peace by sowing faith in field of doubt. That's one more time when God had me that I can lean on when I'm trying to listen to the voice that says trust over the fear screaming in my ear. Sometimes things don't go my way, but God has never once failed to work things to my good, as He promised. When we pray to be an instrument of God's peace, it doesn't mean there won't be storms or that we won't be afraid. But it does mean we'll have the grace to remember the One we can trust, and our trusting His proven track record only proves it more, over and over, and shows those struggling with doubt His love, His power and His glory.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 21 ~ Sowing Faith

We've been taking a step by step journey through the Prayer Of Saint Francis and looking at what it means to be an instrument of God's peace, and how if we desire to be that we must start by sowing love. The next step in being an implement of peace and the first step in sowing love is to pardon injury. The following line asks for help to sow faith where there is doubt. It is all too easy to get caught up in the idea that we should share our faith, that the faith must be spread. I realize that I'm nitpicking semantics here and getting slightly off track from where we've been going, but sometimes semantics matter almost as much as motives, because sometimes the words, terms and how we define things affect our motives.

I think this prayer is too well constructed for the order to be coincidental, but  even if it was not the original author's intent, I believe the Holy Spirit used the order to  help remind me, and thereby remind you of some important semantics. The semantics are about what we are called to be and do. What exactly is the great commission? In recovery you'll hear phrases like attraction rather than promotion, in an attempt to keep from pushing people away by trying to shove the program of recovery down their throats. There is no proselytization allowed in the traditions of most Twelve Step programs, and yet the common understanding of a practice known as twelve stepping is to go to someone in the chains of bondage and say something to the effect of I've been where you are, done what you can't stop doing, and this is what it was like, what happened to me and what it's like now. If you want a way out and what I have, I have a solution.

Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. This is the original wording of Step 12 from back when there was only one Twelve Step Program rather than the many we have today. Obviously we are to share the solution that caused us to wake spiritually and help others to wake up and be free. It's not whether or not we share solution as much as how. I share what it was like then vs. what it's like now and let you decide. If you want what I have I'll tell you how I got it. If you don't want to do what I did, I'll move on to someone I can help. The seeds that are sown today may blossom and be harvested by another years down the road. Or they might not be.

It's not that I don't care, but making the seed of belief grow is not my job. My life works better when I leave my god suit in the trash and let God be God. He does His part, and I do what He tells me to do Sometimes I fail at that, but when I get it right my life is better. Part of getting that right is knowing certain things are never my job. Making you or anyone believe is one of those things that is never my job, or yours either for that matter.

Matthew 28 tells us to make disciples, not make them believe. The gospel of Mark says preach the gospel. The gospel is the good news that God loves you, and He does so to such an extent that He sent Jesus to die in your place, to set you free and to heal your broken heart and give you an abundant life worth living. Jesus rose from the dead and is alive today, interceding on your behalf so that His rightness and perfection will  be counted as yours in place of your wrongness and imperfection and that His power will become your power so that you can have relationship with God and walk with Him. That's the good news we are to share with the world. There is freedom and life freely available to all because of the love of God and the life, death and life again of Jesus.

Those who respond to that message by wanting more, by loving God back, by saying yes, those are the ones that Matthew says make disciples of. Making someone a disciple is like taking someone through the steps, it only works if they are willing and have a heart to do it. Why does this matter? And why am I going off on a rant here about the great commission and step 12 instead of expounding on what it means to be an instrument of peace by sowing faith where there is doubt?

Well, I will go into that faith in place of doubt aspect tomorrow, but today I felt the need to address where many of our minds go when the idea of sowing faith is raised. Many of the worst offenses and some of the worst damage done in the name of and history of Christianity occurred when people got Matthew and Mark's instructions wrong because they tried to spread the faith of Christianity as the solution and salvation of the  soul and of the world. They got the faith of Christianity confused with the gospel. So they tried to force faith and, lacking that, a confession of faith.

No, faith is not the answer, the solution or our salvation. Jesus is. The answer is the love of God which enables us to love Him in return and to be reconciled with Him. It matters because if you remember that we are to love as He loves and pardon as He pardoned and that out of the seeds of love and forgiveness the fruit of faith is born, you'll never choke someone to death trying to shove faith down their throat. No one would ever believe that a sword is the way to demonstrate love and pardon.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 20 ~ To Pardon Injury

Whoever first penned the amazing prayer that came to be known as the Prayer Of Saint Francis (St. Francis didn't have anything to do with it), made it clear in the prayer that being An Instrument Of God's Peace would both cost and require action. We looked at the first action yesterday in Sowing Love In Fields Of Hate, and it makes sense that asking for the grace to pardon injury would follow asking for the grace to sow love where there is hate.

Hate hurts. It hurts everyone. It hurts the person doing the hating. It hurts the person being hated, if they are aware of it, and it, at times, hurts family, friends, and innocent bystanders around one or both of the parties involved. The only person who is always damaged by hatred is the person doing the hating, which makes it more sensible to return love for hate. No one ever accused emotions of being logic driven though. If we want to be an instrument of God's peace, when we become aware of being in the presence of hate, especially when it is directed at us, we must purposefully plant and respond with the love of God. But if we do that, we are going to get hurt.

Let us not get confused about that. Love is not a way to escape pain. Jesus was in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane as He aligned His will with the Father's in order to carry out being an instrument of peace and a perfect expression of God's love for His enemies. And it only got worse from that point on. His friends deserted Him. He was framed. He was beaten, mocked and spit on. He was lied about and had His words twisted. He was drug from one person of authority to another and back again in the face of obvious injustice, and no one would help Him. His beard was ripped out and thorns were driven into His head. Finally He was nailed to a cross on a hill like a common criminal, naked and exposed and on display and in tremendous pain, fighting for every breath until He died hours later. This is what the Creator of everything endured because He chose to love and to respond to the hatred of and in the world with love.

Hate hurts us, and when we respond with love instead of hate, we are both going to experience hurt and have that hurt seem to go unanswered. Lord, this hurts so much. I want to love with Your love, like You love me, but I don't know what to do with this pain this hateful person caused me. Then the Spirit of Wisdom says, pardon it, forgive as you have been forgiven. It's the next step.

I love that this prayer doesn't just say help me to forgive or that we choose to forgive. Not that there's anything wrong with the pattern of prayer we call The Lord's Prayer, but when it comes to this aspect, I prefer this one, because it is full of understanding that what we are forgiving, what we are giving pardon to, is an injury. It is damage, hurt and pain caused by someone else to me.

Sometimes my wife takes responsibility and blame for things that are not her fault or responsibility. Sometimes she takes responsibility for things that are  not wrong or damaging. She's either pleading guilty for someone else's crimes or for things that are not even misdemeanors. In both cases I always respond to her apologies with the truth that she has nothing to apologize for. She hasn't hurt me and didn't do anything wrong and she has no reason to be sorry. That's not forgiving her.

That's saying there was no injury. When we say that we understand that someone didn't mean to hurt us, or intended something different or that whatever happened was an accident, then we are excusing it. We are acknowledging injury, but we are at the same time justifying the action that caused it. It was the other person's fault but it wasn't on purpose. It's OK. We understand. That's not forgiving either. Nor is the similar, well, I've hurt you in a similar manner or with a similar cost before, so now we are even. Or if you do this or that for me then we will be even. That's justice, hence the balance held by Blind Lady Justice.

No, true forgiveness makes no sense. They did cause injury, but they didn't care if they hurt me or not, best case, and, worst case, they were trying to kill me. It was intentional, evil and unprovoked and nothing that they can ever do can balance the scale or make it right. My pain and injury can only be healed by God. So what do I do with the person who caused it? Well, if we're serious about being instruments of God's peace then we have to love that person who attacked, used and abused us. How do we do that? Grace. The answer is Jesus. We need His grace poured out on us to empower us with the desire and ability to do what we can't do, in this case love as He loved. Full of pain, still bleeding from the injuries and with the echoes of the mocking still in our ears and hanging alone from the rejection we cry out our forgiveness for those who do not deserve forgiveness. We pardon the injury and forgive the debt.

The action that is required for peace is love. The action that is required for love to be more than words includes pardoning. Step by step with this prayer we express our understanding of the cost to follow and be like Jesus. We need to also remember that this is as far beyond our ability to do perfectly, regularly and permanently as is is for us to live under water. We might can hold our breath for a little while but sooner or later we must come up for air or die. We can't love and pardon debts of damage and pain anymore than we can pull oxygen from water. Doing it on our own is like spiritually holding our breath. We need the tanks of God's grace filling us with the love and power of Christ to make it possible for us to stay in that place.

Lord, today, let us remember that we have Your love within us and those tanks of grace are full. When someone or something frightens or damages us, let us be quick to take a breath of grace and show the love of Christ within us by giving pardon rather than retaliating. Amen.

Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 19 ~ Sowing Love In Fields Of Hate

The simple Prayer Of St. Francis has no wasted words, no fat to trim. The prayer asks the impossible and requests changes in character that go deeper than DNA. The Beetles were right when they said all you need is love, but the idea is hardly original, and the concept wasn't new. Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who use us with ill intent. We are told in Scripture to do love those who hate us and to overcome evil with good. The difference between the Beetles and the New Testament is that the New Testament makes it clear that walking in love is impossible outside of the grace of Christ working in us. while the Beetles seemed to believe the hippy hype and think it might actually be possible for human beings to start loving each other and stop hating and killing one another.

Deep down we know that's never going to happen. In an election year like this one, we don''t even have to dig down for that truth. It's as obvious as sand on the sea. We want others to treat us with respect and care and like they would prefer to be treated, while we blame them for treating us wrong and therefore justifying our retaliation. We hate our enemies and regard them as though they have no value. We despise those we disagree with. And we show no mercy to those who we view as a threat to our beliefs and way of life. That is the truth of humanity. You can see it play out in preschools. Take my toy, and I'll make you sorry.

Religion might help on the surface. A few people might even be able to keep their reactions in check through extreme circumstances. But the number is far exceeded by the ever growing fruit of hate and hurt that is choking everything else. Sowing love is an impossible human reaction to the world around us. It goes against what we see as our nature. To love in the face of and in response to hate takes the kind of personal realignment that Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane before going to the cross, where He asked if there were any other way, then said no matter what He would do the will of the Father first and then got up and carried out the painful road to death.

Make no mistake sowing love where there is hate is not filling your life with rainbows and roses. It more than likely will increase both rain and thorns instead. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't feel right. And it hurts. When we are hated, especially when we are hated for doing good, it feels agonizingly like we are being crucified. We have to accept the hatred and hurt and choose to love in return, and we can't do that. It's not in us, at least not in our human nature. But it is the very nature of the new spirit within us that is born of God. It is God's nature to love those who hate Him, to love to the point of dying in their place.

To sow is to make a conscious choice. It is to place purposefully the seeds of love where they need to be, We are not going to outgrow or choke out hate by sowing love, not on this planet and not on this side of eternity. Jesus said the world would hate those who followed Him and things are going to get so much worse that if He doesn't return we're going to destroy human life once and for all.  We know that too. That's why post Apocalypse  fiction is so popular. No, we'll never beat hate on a grand scale. We can't even beat it within ourselves without the grace of God giving us the power. But we can, by grace, be more like Jesus and sow love where there is hate. Some of those seeds will grow and change the eternal for the heart that receives it. Every one of us who has a relationship with God has it because someone sowed the love of God in our heart as they went about being an instrument of God's peace.

Being the truth and light of Christ to a hurt and dying world is more important on the eternal scale of things than anything, including our rights and way of life, even than our very life. The first response to having God answer our prayer to be used by Him to help others find peace with Him is to learn to love as Jesus did. We need to step outside the pattern.  Before we can do anything else, before we can sow truth that will grow, we must love. We love God because He first loved us. If the enemies of God are ever to become our brothers and sisters, then we must, by grace, swallow our need to retaliate and return hate for hate.

Lord, today let us be an instrument of Your peace by loving like You loved, in the face of hate, when it costs and when it isn't easy. Let us remember that Your love must go through Your people to find the hearts of the broken, captive enemies that You want to reconcile to You. We may not change the world, but we will change the eternity of those who we love enough to die for. Help us to put to death our need to defend and protect self, and help us to carry our cross to the hill where You may be glorified and lifted up in our way of life. Let our ability to love the unlovable show Your transformative power, Your love and Your way of life for Your glory. Let us not pray this prayer lightly, and let us not speak love while our actions and reactions continue hate and thereby push people further from You. Let our desire to love someone as You love, in the hopes of them finding reconciliation with You, be more important than any agenda or label or group. Amen

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 18 ~ An Instrument Of God's Peace

The first line of the Prayer Of St. Francis is Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. What an awesome place to start a prayer that focuses on dealing with the heart of who we are in Christ and our desire and need align ourselves with His will and become more like Jesus. First we acknowledge who we are praying to. He is Lord. More than just a Lord, He is a personal Lord, our Lord, mine and yours. That is the place that all prayer and every aspect of our relationship with God must begin.

It's not that the word we use to address God at the beginning of a prayer is the issue, or that we must verbally put a recipient at the beginning. God knows who we are speaking to when we pray. It's not an issue of making sure the God we are addressing knows we're talking to Him, or following some ritual in order not to get it wrong and invalidate our right to talk to Him. It's a matter of the heart. It's about coming to God from a place of surrender, with an understanding that He is Father, Daddy, Master, Sovereign Lord of our life. He is ruler; we are subject. He is Father; we are child. He has all authority, and in this prayer I like that it begins with Lord rather than Father, because while He is both, and both show authority, Lord also acknowledges that He has the power to grant our petitions and change our hearts and lives.

This matters, because when we come to God, we can come with access of a child to Daddy, but always with the understanding that Daddy is Lord and King, with all right to rule us. We're not going to spiritually turn 18 and be able to disregard our Father and do whatever we want, to rule our own life, because He is more than our Father. He is our Lord. Accepting and understanding and submitting to that truth is the place where God's peace begins.

An instrument is a tool or implement with a purpose. We can not be a servant (tool) or an implement with a purpose of propagating  God's peace if we do not possess that peace. We can not give away what we do not have. The precious peace that passes understanding and comes only from God is essential to every aspect of our life.

The first element of God's peace is peace with God. We are no longer at war with the King, because we have surrendered and become His subjects. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight (Colossians 1:21-22). Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).

Our peace with God is not contingent upon us and not because of us. It is because of the work of Jesus on the cross. Because of what Jesus did for us, we are no longer enemies of God. And that means that no matter how badly we may mess up we have not destroyed our peace with God. We didn't earn it, deserve it or establish it. Jesus did those things, and we do not have the power to overcome the work of Jesus and destroy that peace. We can have confidence that Jesus has purchased our peace with God, and that because of that peace, we can enter His throne room and bow the knee as His subject and know that He will treat us as a beloved child rather than the enemy we once were. It is peace with God that makes us able to declare Him our Lord.

Peace is more than just a cessation of war though. It is freedom from disturbance, quiet and tranquility. Think back to life separated from God. There really isn't anything that can lead to more disturbance and disquiet in our life.  The bondage of addictions and selfishness, the struggle to manage and control and protect our self rule while the world spun more and more out of control around and within us, and the constant feeling of dissatisfaction and discontent was a miserable existence indeed. It could not be described as full of peace, even if there were moments of tranquility.

Through the freedom we have in Christ, we can live lives that are no longer filled with the struggle for control, for acceptance, to  do what we can not do, and as slaves to things within and without that we hate. We know that regardless of our circumstances and situation, are relationship  with God is secure and ultimately His purpose will be fulfilled. That gives us peace, a freedom from disturbance, soul quiet and mental tranquility that can not be shaken or stolen away. This is the peace we have available to access and is promised to us when we begin our relationship with God with surrendering to His lordship. In fact our times of distress where we have lost that peace as Christians can be tracked back to trying to do those things ourselves once more and in moments where we have taken back His right to rule our life and will.

What we have been freely given, we are to freely give away. Surrendering to God's purpose for our life, which includes being more like Jesus, who is the One who made out peace with God and from God possible, includes the willingness and the desire to be an instrument of passing that peace to others. Because of God's peace that is evident in my life, I can help others find that same peace, the peace that they so desperately need and long for, even if they haven't realized it. This is true for you too. To live and breath and walk in God's peace from a place of surrender to our Lord and to be an example of and a sign pointing to how to receive that peace is the desire of our heart when we pray, Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Let us make it our honest prayer today.

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Moments ~ September 17 ~ Scary Prayer

I will be beginning a sermon series on prayer with the next sermon I preach. As of now, I'm still not sure exactly what the series will cover or what I hope to accomplish with it, other than I want to minister about prayer what God wants ministered and address some of the questions, like what is prayer? and how do we pray? before perhaps teaching some lessons from some of the Biblical prayers. But as I looked at prayers and instruction for and to pray throughout scripture yesterday, my mind turned to some of my favorite prayers that aren't in the Bible. One of the scariest and most beautiful prayers of all times is perhaps the Prayer Of St. Francis.

I say this prayer is scary, because this is not a prayer to pray lightly. Seriously, if you're not ready to put self on the altar, pick up your cross and follow Jesus in a state of not my will but Yours be done unconditional surrender, don't pray this prayer. But if you want to revolutionize and energize your relationship with God and your service to others, this is a beautiful place to start. Since I will be covering prayer in the upcoming weeks as I preach on Wednesday nights, I thought I would take an in depth look at this prayer here, because this is one of the most widely accepted prayers utilized in programs of recovery.

Prayer is simply communication with God for the purpose of giving Him glory, aligning our will and life with His purpose and will and to fellowship with Him. If we can kill our self spiritually and allow the new self which has been born again to transform us into the image of Christ, the resulting person will be a unique reflection of Jesus that could be described by this prayer. I believe it could also be titled A Request To Be More Like Jesus.

If you want to find freedom, if you are ready to be of maximum service to God and man, if want your life to change in a positive way and be transformed into a blessing worth living, then using this prayer as a pattern for increasing conscious contact with the Creator and getting closer to Daddy is a wonderful place to begin the journey. But before a prayer can be used as a pattern for our own prayers, we have to know it and understand it as it is.

Today let us examine ourselves and where we stand.  The following is my Twelve Step Prayer. If what is in it is what is in your heart to be an do as well, then the Prayer of St. Francis is a good place to start building your own prayer, because this prayer was born from that one. Feel free to make them both yours today and tomorrow we will look at what it means to be an instrument of God's peace.

Lord, You are an amazing and loving God. I am so thankful that You love me and that You have set me free from the bondage of self that brought so much destruction and death into my life. I need Your grace to continue to walk and live free on this day. I know that I am not able to walk with You in love and obedience, free from selfishness and sin, on my own. I believe that You can make me able to do what I can not do though, and that You have poured out the power to become Yours and walk with You on me because You love me. In response to this great grace and love I give You all my life and will to do with as You desire. Forgive me of my sin and rebellion and remove and transform those parts of me that are hardwired to go against You and live for myself. Heal and restore those I have hurt and bring them closer to You. Heal and restore those who have harmed me and help me to live loving forgiveness toward them and anyone who might anger, frustrate or damge me today. Help me to serve You and to serve and help others as a light of Your love, revealing Your power, glory and way of life. Help me to get out of the way and to know You more. If I fall short of walking in the perfection of Your Spirit and grace, help me to see it quickly, to admit it without excuse or shifting of blame and to do what I can to make it right. Let me be Your hands and heart in someone's life today and let me not do anything that would detract from displaying Your love to others. Amen

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.

Unshackled Life ~ September 16 ~ Push The Pigs Off A Cliff

The story of Jesus casting the legion of demons into a herd of pigs is found in Matthew 8:28-37; Mark 5:1-20; and Luke 8:27-39. The gist of the story is this: In a Greek section of Israel two men were together tormented by demons. They were so violent and dangerous that it made travel in that area risky and people chose not to go that way if they could avoid it. At least one of the two men had been bound in chains on more than one occasion, which failed to hold  him and make the roads of the area safe.

They approached Jesus and were healed. The demons were cast out. The demons begged not to be arbitrarily cast out and asked to be allowed to go into a heard of pigs that were nearby, likely a community herd since the whole town responded when the pigs, now demon possessed  Ran down a cliff into the sea and drowned. One of the men begged Jesus to take him along, but Jesus told him to go to his home and tell his family and friends the good things that the Lord had done for him. He went into Decapollis proclaiming what God had done.

The accounts in the Gospels are different, and some who want to tear down the scripture as truth try to show this as a contradiction. They say the accounts, can't be true because they differ. This is not what I want to write about this morning, but I do want to quickly and briefly address it before  moving on. Mark and Luke's Gospels were both written with a gentile audience in mind, while Matthew was writing his Gospel to the Jews. Audience matters, as it helps show the motivation of what and how a story was told.

Let's say I  was sharing at some function with an audience with little to no experience with convicts. I might briefly mention something about how Jesus delivered a couple of felons in prison. It shows what He did, but that's not the aspect of Jesus that is going to help these people see the Savior they need. It might push them away.  Matthew's account  is sparse in detail and only a few verses long. It's almost an aside. This was a huge event; 2000 pigs died in Israel, but Matthew barely acknowledges it. The Jews wouldn't be most easily or best reached by reminding them of the occupation of their country, nor would they care much  that some Greeks lost their pigs and a couple were set free.

But to a bunch of convicts, ex or otherwise, I might tell that same story in more detail. One convict had done the talking and after being set free asked to join the group that led him to Jesus, but was instructed to go back to his area and tell those people. Chances are that there were people receiving Mark and Luke's accounts that were familiar with the story and or the area, because at least one of the men spread the word throughout Decrapollis. Not mentioning a second man, who  may not have spoken at all and may have gone quietly about the rest of his life instead of proclaiming what Jesus did for him, doesn't mean  there weren't two people involved. It only means that one was important to the audience of the one telling the story. A Greek was set free by Jesus and he told his world. You may have even heard of him. It's only a contradiction if Luke and Mark said there was only one man. If I say a man was driving down the road and yelled at me, so I smiled at him, and then at the next light he hollered an apology, do you know if he was alone? Just because I don't mention the guy in the passenger seat doesn't mean he wasn't there, only that I didn't see him as essential to the point I was trying to make.

Enough of that. Something hit me this morning as I thought about this encounter with Jesus. It was how much like those citizens of Decapollis and the pig farmer I can be. Jesus had just made the area much safer, because two dangerous demoniacs were now of sane mind and no longer a threat. He had shown that it wasn't just a mental illness but true demon activity, because healing someone of mental illness wouldn't cause a herd of pigs to commit mass suicide. He showed His power over demons and His willingness to set all captives free, even the gentiles who had no business, in the minds of most Jews, living  in the area, much less raising swine there.

None of that mattered. They knew that raising pigs was considered unclean by the Jews, but they were fine with it. This was a huge loss. These pigs represented their life and livelihood. These unclean animals had more value to them than the Life and Freedom who had come to them. They could have received something far better than what they had lost, but they asked Him to leave.

I have things in my life.  you have things in your life, that we know are unclean. Jesus has come, and we have declared Him less valuable than those things we refuse to release, give up and sacrifice. Whatever we hold back from God is more important to us than He is. It has more worth in our heart than the King and Lord who created us. I look at this moment in the life of Jesus and feel sad for those who missed a chance to have a life changing encounter with Jesus because they saw Him as less precious than a couple thousand pigs. But the truth is that those pigs were probably worth far more than some of the things I've asked Jesus to move along without me over.

We have a chance today to have a life changing encounter with the Savior. He will make us free. He will secure our way. He will return us to sanity and give us a life worth living. He will  destroy our pigs. It's a package deal. For every pig we hold onto we get that much less freedom, security and sanity and life worth living. Let's see those things that we've come to rely on and associate as part of who we are and define what we do as nothing more than perishable unclean things and not as something more precious than the One who created us and everything that  has been created. Don't ask Him to move on without you. Give the pigs directions to the cliff.



Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.

If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.