Vickie Leigh S. Smith M.Ed; BDV
Where is Your Gaze?
Where Is Your Gaze? Re-mind…Re-Cognize…Re-Member The Lord always has a plan! Knowing that He has a plan should be our first thought when it comes to living our lifestyle as His Children. All that we do should be deferred to the Holy Spirit! He has Wisdom. While He has Wisdom, We have intellect. As such it behooves us to use our intellect to go to Him for wisdom. In Isaiah 55: 8-9, it is written that His ways are not our ways. As heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. If this is true, which it is, then there is a trusting process that we need to choose: Walk by faith, and not by sight (2 Corinthians5;7) In this Teaching in the Upper Room, you are invited to ask yourself: Where is my Gaze? I invite you to be RE-minded and RE-member that He has a Direction we are to follow and He deposits the Tools (through Grace) on how to follow His Will. As we do this there should be an effect from following His direction! This is the fruit! The scripture I’d like you to read, study, and put into practice are the following: (I will share with you the spirit of the message rather than the direct translation.) Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed of this world, but be transformed by the constant renewing of your mind. 2 Corinthians 10: 3 the war in which you are in is not a Worldly War but a spiritual one. 2 Corinthians 10: 4 we do not fight these wars with worldly weapons but heavenly ones. 2 Corinthians 10: 5 we will demolish the arguments using these heavenly weapons 2 Corinthians 10: 8 we are meant to build up versus tear down. 2 Corinthian 3: 18 this scripture talks about Gaze – We become what we behold Consider this, there is the divine will, human will, and enemy territory. Through our free will we have the choice on which direction we want to move through the lifestyle in which we live. The direction that I have written above is from the divine will through scripture. the Lord will let us know if we are on track by the fruits and if we are not on track by the consequences that come sometimes naturally from the choices that we make. But we desire the fruits don't we? So here is your invitation to understand through wisdom the direction in which our Lord is leading us and guiding us in the Divine Current! Tools are crucial to accomplishing our tasks in the natural and equally important are the supernatural tools to accomplish the work of being the hands and feet of Jesus and grow in Holiness. Let's consider for a moment the natural tools that we use in our environments. Think about this, if you were walking in your home and all the lights were off you would know where you were because of your familiarity with your environment. But, if I walked into your home I wouldn’t be familiar with the way your home is laid out. I would be bumping into furniture and items in your home, wouldn't I? What is the main point? The main point is familiarity! You are more accomplished with the task at hand, the more familiar you are. That was in the natural realm now let's take a look at the supernatural realm with this same kind of concept in the back of your mind. The more familiar you are with the way in which heaven works, the more fruit you will see within the lifestyle you live in. If you know about God's Providence promise and protection and live your life through this lens then the fruits that you will see will be a daily experience! This does not mean that the miracle that you were hoping for will be your daily experience, but that living in a yielded posture to the Holy Spirits Presence yields the miracles you have yet to see until this point. On the other hand, the miracle you were hoping for, could be that daily experience. But be assured He has the Divine Plan. He knows the Way and is the Truth and is the Life! (John 14:6) The tools that we use in the natural for jobs that we work to perform could be something like a colander to strain spaghetti noodles from the water; or glasses to see and read better, and we use pens for writing on paper and whiteboards. These are natural tools that help us accomplish the task at hand. But there are supernatural tools as well! We have our novenas, we have scripture, the power of prayer, we have the holy mass, we have adoration, we have this sacraments and the sacramentals, and the list goes on. It's important at this juncture to share with you that there is value in being able to pray over people and circumstances as the Holy Spirit gives you words of knowledge and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this way, we are collaborating and cooperating with the Holy Spirit. This is why I can't emphasize enough how important it is to spend time with He, who is; He, who was, and He who will be!