Monday Meditations- 2 Timothy 3:16

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Monday Meditations – Episode 1 Today's Meditation Verse: 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; This scripture seems like an obvious statement. But there are aspects to this verse that many people disregard. One item is the very first word. It says ALL scripture is inspired by God and profitable… I know that there are many people in many walks of life, in many different churches, who say that only parts of the scriptures are relevant to us today. They disregard the history of the Old Testament. The genealogies of Christ and others. They can't understand the book of Revelation so they push it off for later. Of course Numbers and Leviticus is difficult. But this scripture says ALL scriptures are profitable for teaching, reproof and correction, for training in righteousness. Even the most difficult to read hold nuggets that will help transform your life. As you meditate on this scripture this week, contemplate what scriptures you have neglected, avoided or ignored and ask the Father to help you read them with understanding and to learn from them. Each Monday I am going to be having 'Monday Meditations'. I hope to bring to you each Monday a verse to mediate on for the week. This is not for memorization, but to think about and to dwell on. The word meditate, in the bible, means to mutter. So this week as you go about your life, think about and mutter to yourself the verse for the week and think about how it applies to your life. Meditating on a verse will bind it to your spirit and it will become part of you! The more of the Word you meditate on, the more it will transform you into the image of Christ! Shop all versions of my novels here: Shop Here [https://nancyjacksonauthor.com/collections/novels] My Media Website: NancyJacksonPodcast.com [https://nancyjacksonpodcast.com] Check out my website: NancyJacksonAuthor.com [https://www.NancyJacksonAuthor.com] Follow me here: Substack: https://nancyjackson.substack.com/ [https://nancyjackson.substack.com/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyJacksonAuthor [https://www.facebook.com/NancyJacksonAuthor] Twitter: https://twitter.com/NAJackson [https://twitter.com/NAJackson] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/najackson/ [https://www.instagram.com/najackson/] Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/nancyannjackson [https://www.pinterest.com/nancyannjackson] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NancyJackson [https://www.youtube.com/@NancyJacksonAuthor] TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nancyajackson?lang=en [https://www.tiktok.com/@nancyajackson?lang=en]

Friday Finale - RU Being Driven or Led? - Episode 1

Are You Driven or Led? Friday Finally - Episode 1 Why do you do what you do? Is it a thought or a feeling? Is it a rule or a law? I've been trying to stress home the idea of living a life of being led by the prompting of the Holy Spirit and not by any other thought, feeling or idea. When I was much younger attending church, one of the first theological words I heard was conviction. Is the Holy Spirit convicting you of something? When you did that wrong thing, did you feel conviction? But not until the last several years has the Lord begun to specifically define and show me what that word conviction really feels like. And how the Holy Spirit truly leads us in our lives. One definition of the word conviction is referring to when Paul is preaching and it states that he preached with conviction, or forcefulness. There are actually two Greeks words for conviction in the context that I am referring to and not what I expected to find. You may find a full word study on the word conviction on Monday Meditation - Conviction. The first meaning is 'full assurance' and the other is 'correction'. The use correction is only used once when Paul was talking to Timothy in: 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; Hmmm, the scripture, not the Holy Spirit, is for correction. Just like a textbook not the teacher. I don't think I would get any argument if I made the statement that this is a harsh world. A world where we are introduced to pain and suffering at a very young age. There are mean people in this world doing mean things. Even our own parents, as much as they loved us, didn't always discipline and correct us in the way that was appropriate. I know as a parent myself, I can look back and see that sometimes I did whatever it took to get them to do what I wanted or needed them to do. If I had to spank them, I would. If I had to ground them, I would. If I had to yell and scream, I would. If I had to place guilt on them, I would. But I'll be the first to admit, I was not a perfect parent. In fact, I was far from it. But our Father God is a perfect parent and doesn't parent at all the way we do. And the Holy Spirit is our teacher and guide here on this earth and a perfect and gentle teacher, always leading us, not pushing us. But since all that we know is the parenting we have experienced here on this earth we automatically associate it to our Father God. So when we hear from the pulpit that the Holy Spirit will convict us, our minds go to something difficult and highly unpleasant. We usually associate it with feeling guilty. As we grow older in the Lord we don't sever that feeling of guilt from true conviction. Let me give you some examples: You go to church every Sunday because you feel convicted if you don't, or is it guilt? You give offerings because you feel convicted if you don't, or is it guilt? You try to 'be good' because you feel convicted if you don't, or is it guilt? Are you starting to think now? Look back at the feelings that you have and the thoughts that you have had in these instances. As I began to ponder this myself, I really wanted to know what it was that was motivating me to do the things I did. I wanted a clean heart and a clear conscience and I wanted to do things from the leading of the Holy Spirit and for no other reason. Then the Lord began to teach me about conviction versus guilt. Guilt and condemnation come from the enemy. So Father God would never use the emotion of guilt to correct us or to move us. So the very first thing I had to do was to learn to resist guilt. The moment a thought or feeling of guilt would enter my mind, I would take it captive and reject it. 2 Corinthians 10:5 AMP We are destroying sophisticated arguments and every exalted and proud thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought and purpose captive to the obedience of Christ, So then what and how does the Holy Spirit lead? Picture these two examples: In one you are held at knife point and are poked and prodded to move forward against your will while feeling dread and remorse. But you move because the sharp point of the guilt-knife hurts! In the second, you are a sweet young puppy and you have a safe and comfortable harness on. You have a leash attached to the chest portion of the harness. You feel a slight tug from the leash, just below the center of your chest. It is a gentle tug, one that could easily be missed if you weren't paying attention and there is a gentle loving voice urging you to come. But when you do recognize it, you get up and move forward, at your own pace being led in the correct direction. We must practice to learn to silence guilt from the enemy and listen with a slightly turned ear to the voice of Holy Spirit, to learn to feel that tug in the center of our being. Psalms 46:10 AMP "Be still and know (recognize, understand) that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth." You have also read the version where it says, Be still and know that I am God. I love this because sometimes we are striving to obey the voice of guilt in our lives so much that we cannot hear God and know His true heart for us. How does the enemy feed guilt into our lives? By thoughts and words. They may enter our minds through the words of other people telling us that we have not done enough or are not good enough or are failing in some way. In an another post I wrote called Christian Clones, I spoke about self-help books that take the plan God gave individuals for their life, and decided it was the plan for everyone. That is another way that guilt enters our minds. We try to follow a diet or weight loss plan and it doesn't work for us. We try to manage our money the way the book says to do and we can't do it that way. So we feel guilty that we were not able to be successful at this and are then overridden with guilt and condemnation. If we do something we perceive as wrong we feel guilt. That is not from the Holy Spirit. We as a people are conditioned to respond to guilt, especially when we've been taught that it is conviction from the Holy Spirit. Also, when we do read the Word for true instruction, if we read about things we have done wrong in the past or are still struggling with, the enemy is quick to bring guilt! He will tell you what a bad person or Christian you are and that God will abandon you and not love you anymore because you've not done what He asked of you in the Word. And we interpret this as conviction from the Holy Spirit! But we must, absolutely must read the Word as much as we can. It is the Word that convicts us while we are reading it. When we see something in there that corrects us, we should then make a point of changing our behavior to make that correction. If we do not spend time in the Word, we will not be able to know what Holy Spirit wants us to change. Therefore when we are going through our daily lives the Word isn't abiding in us and it is more difficult to discern the Holy Spirt leading us. The Word is the plan, the road map that Holy Spirit uses to lead and guide us. It is imperative that we have read it and have it in us. Remember, that feeling of guilt is of the enemy! The Holy Spirit is a loving and leading entity not a pushing and prodding entity. Immediately reject the guilt, be still and listen for the soothing loving voice of the Father to lead you forward in the right direction. Even if you feel guilt after doing something wrong, it is still not of the Lord. He wants to lead you into doing right, not pressure you at the knife point of guilt after you have done wrong. You will move forward much quicker and go much farther with the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit. You can be assured that by following the leading of Holy Spirit you are going in the right direction, much more so than if you moved forward reluctantly at the sharp knife point of guilt. There will be less ground gained and you can be almost certain that you won't be on the path that the Holy Spirit would be leading you on no matter how 'good' it may seem. But if we can put aside the feeling of guilt and allow ourselves to hear the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit, He will lead us to the very best goals, good deeds and a peaceful lifestyle, gently and easily, but on a path that makes sense for your individual life, not someone else's path. It takes much practice and it is something that I am still learning to do every moment of every day. But I routinely stop, lean my ear to the Spirit and sense His quiet leading in the midst of the chaos and noise. And then that is the way I choose where to go. I know that this will become an unconscious habit for me and not something that I have to remember to do. Don't let guilt speak louder in your life than the Holy Spirit. Learn to silence it once and for all. This study is a culmination of this week's Monday Meditation and the Wednesday Word Study. By drilling down on specific scriptures and then specific words, we can begin to gain a better understanding of the Word of God and therefore apply it to our lives more accurately. The Friday Finally episodes take both the Monday Meditation and Wednesday Word Study and pull them together for an overall teaching to equip and train us for a more Godly and beneficial life. Shop all versions of my novels here: Shop Here [https://nancyjacksonauthor.com/collections/novels] My Media Website: NancyJacksonPodcast.com [https://nancyjacksonpodcast.com] Check out my website: NancyJacksonAuthor.com [https://www.NancyJacksonAuthor.com] Follow me here: Substack: https://nancyjackson.substack.com/ [https://nancyjackson.substack.com/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyJacksonAuthor [https://www.facebook.com/NancyJacksonAuthor] Twitter: https://twitter.com/NAJackson [https://twitter.com/NAJackson] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/najackson/ [https://www.instagram.com/najackson/] Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/nancyannjackson [https://www.pinterest.com/nancyannjackson] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NancyJackson [https://www.youtube.com/@NancyJacksonAuthor] TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nancyajackson?lang=en [https://www.tiktok.com/@nancyajackson?lang=en]

5. Juni 202613 min

Honest Motivation | Archive Story - Episode 13

Honest Motivation Listen to my professionally narrated audio books and other podcasts here: AUDIO BOOKS & ALL PODCASTS [https://thestorywithnancyjackson.supercast.com/]. Why Are You Writing Those Blogs? A friend asked me earlier this week why I was writing the blogs I've been writing. It seemed like an odd question to me. Wasn't the 'why' obvious to this friend of mine? We proceeded to have a discussion regarding my 'why'. I was able to articulate exactly my 'why' for each of the three blogs that I write weekly. But, her asking gave me a reason to verbalize a concise reason for my motivation. Why Do We Do What We Do? Sometimes, we don't know why we do what we do, we just do them. We get into routines of work and home and rarely think about why we are doing what we are doing. I believe that motivation is an issue rarely delved into, but something that should be examined often. We have no trouble stating what we believe to be someone else's motive. I'm not talking about that. I am talking about us each day evaluating openly before God, our own personal motivations. Be Brave - Ask Yourself Why Dare I say that if we were to humbly take a look at them and allow God to show us the truth of the matter, we would not be as bold and brash to ascribe blame to someone else and why they do something. Two of the most simple and prominent motivators are money and pleasure. It is often just that simple. We work for money and we play for pleasure. If we reduce our motivations down to these two motivators, we will find our lives empty and hollow. Even if we find great pleasure in our work, that too will soon become empty. Are You Dragging Through Life? The world is filled with so many people dragging themselves to their workplace every single day. They do it to get paid. If they don't go, they don't get paid. Then, they don't have a roof over their head and food to eat. I see another generation of people who have witnessed their parents and grandparent engaging in this daily drudgery for their entire lives, only to die at the end unfulfilled and they are asking themselves, do I want to live this life of drudgery too? https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hZls!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7cda300c-69f3-46bc-94cb-77fa98982e0d_400x100.png Seeking Pleasurable Experiences Instead, they seek an experiential lifestyle that will bring them pleasure. They reduce the need for a roof to the smallest and simplest they can. They live a small footprint on the earth so that the money they do have can be spent on gaining pleasure, which they are convinced is not in things. But the pursuit of experiences for pleasure's sake will also grow hollow. It will not sustain the necessary motivation for the long term. When the money and pleasure no longer satisfy, it is often hard to admit. Disappointment usually sets in, then discouragement, depression, and then despondency. How Long Can You Force It? Depending on your type of personality and upbringing, this may happen quickly or take several years to surface and is challenging to recover from. There was once a person who had it all. He had all the money a person could want. He had all the pleasure a person could hope for. The euphoria of having it all did not last, and it did not sustain because he had lost the one and only life giving motivator and could not get it back. Ecclesiastes 1:3 What advantage does man have in all his work Which he does under the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:8 All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing. Ecclesiastes 2:1-2 I said to myself, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself." And behold, it too was futility. I said of laughter, "It is madness," and of pleasure, "What does it accomplish?" Ramblings of a Near Madman These are just a select few ramblings of a man who had everything but had left his first love and source of joy, King Solomon. He had it all. God gave him wealth to have it all because he had desired wisdom. But, in the end, he had grown far away from Jehovah God, dabbled in idol worship, did as he pleased when he pleased, and disappointment, discouragement, depression, and then despondency set in. The words in Ecclesiastes are the ramblings of a man in the throes of despondency. And yet both the motivational factors of money and pleasure he had experienced to the full. If Not Money or Pleasure, Then What? What are we to conclude, then? That neither money nor pleasure for motivation will ever fulfill you. But you already knew that. And yet… we are still driven by them both. And so was I for most of my life. That was until I too began to see the lack of fulfillment there. The growing realization that to be genuinely fulfilled with an internal joy that God gives, we need, we must follow the path that he lays out for us. Most people are afraid to ask God what his plan is for them. They are convinced that his plan will provide very little money and no pleasure. We believe he will stick us in some obscure place as a missionary or something that in our mind is hard, boring and unfulfilling. God needs you in the profession where your heart will sing and you will flourish. Because he loves you. Because he has designed you with the gifts and talents that are needed in this world we live in. If you are a round peg trying to fit into a square hole because of money or pleasure, ask God where your place is. Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." He does want you to have money and pleasure, but if we seek those things without his guidance, we will never be truly fulfilled by them. Money is Only a Medium of Exchange We cannot be driven or motivated by money. Money is just a medium of exchange. It cannot bring internal satisfaction. Pleasure is so fleeting and fickle that sustainability is not obtainable. I've had many shifts in my career through the years. Most have been wildly profitable. Some were very fulfilling for a while. Recently, over the past couple of years. God has been leading me down a path of writing. I wrote four novels in one year with his help. Disappointment Comes When You Least Expect It Everyone showered me with great reviews and comments. It thrilled me because this validation was sure to lead to financial profit. But it did not. I am just being real here. The royalties on books is so very slim it is shocking. Multiplied, it adds up, but when you are a new author, climbing the mountain to being 'known' is daunting. After writing those four novels and reeling from all the hard work that it had been, I was ready to rest. Particularly since the motivation of money was not there. Neither was the motivator of pleasure. Process vs. Reward Yes, it was pleasurable, but not in balance to the degree of hard work that it required. One did not justify the other. Pleasure should not be that hard to obtain. Then, a little over a year ago, God pushed me to define the call he had placed on my life and to streamline my focus to what he wanted me to do. It has been a journey of prayer and faith. He has called me to write. He has given me many books to write. There are a few other sidebars on that call, but for now, I am focusing on writing. Will You do it For The Lord When There is no Other Motivator? In the meantime, until it is profitable, he has graciously given me a career that is profitable and one where I am also helping people. So, I answered my friend, why I write the blogs. Here were my answers. Why I Write I write the Inspirational Blog posts because I have an overwhelming desire to encourage and help people to be all that Christ has for them to be. I long to see people walk free of bondages that have kept them from their best life in Christ. So, I write… I write the Writing Blog posts because I love to encourage others and see them succeed. I share freely what I have been given so others may not have to try so hard to figure out what to do like I did. I pray they take my research and trial and error and run with it. So, I write… I write the My Life of Miracles Blog posts because I want to encourage others who are growing discouraged from lack of answered prayer that God still hears, sees, and does miracles. He honors your faith and he will do all that he says that he will, not just for me, but for you, too. So, I write… Profitable? Not yet. But, I believe it will be. I hope it will be. I pray it will be. Pleasurable? Not always. It is hard work. I do a lot of writing, proofing, and marketing, etc. But, then there are times it makes my heart sing, particularly when someone tells me it has blessed them. What is my motivation? I am doing it because it is what God has set before me to do. It is my calling and the only way to see it fulfilled in my life is to be obedient and do it. I trust him that in this journey I will see more than I ever dreamed of. For me this is a test of trust. Do I trust him while there is no money and little pleasure? Do you? This is what I keep hearing... Do the work. God will do the rest. For you and for me. Originally published by me here: https://nancyjacksonauthor.com/blogs/inspirational/honest-motivation [https://nancyjacksonauthor.com/blogs/inspirational/honest-motivation] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xfoC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa65bb9df-f5e2-4c82-84e2-8f09a9a23217_7325x1604.png Shop all versions of my novels here: Shop Here [https://nancyjacksonauthor.com/collections/novels] Check out my website: NancyJacksonAuthor.com [https://www.NancyJacksonAuthor.com] Follow me here: Substack: https://nancyjackson.substack.com/ [https://nancyjackson.substack.com/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyJacksonAuthor [https://www.facebook.com/NancyJacksonAuthor] Twitter: https://twitter.com/NAJackson [https://twitter.com/NAJackson] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/najackson/ [https://www.instagram.com/najackson/] Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/nancyannjackson [https://www.pinterest.com/nancyannjackson] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyajackson/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyajackson/] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NancyJackson [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBawU_f3R6wfeNv2vytrfmA] TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nancyajackson?lang=en [https://www.tiktok.com/@nancyajackson?lang=en]

1. Juni 202612 min

Monday Meditations- 2 Timothy 3:16 - Episode 1

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