Happy Easter! Jesus is alive. He wants to raise you up to represent Him. You may be having the time of your life today…or you may be sad, lonely, and wondering why you don’t have a husband or wife. You may feel like your heart is broken over the loss of a friend or family member.

When the heart is broken, shattered in pieces, and it feels like no one knows or cares….God is with you. When the bad medical report comes, God is with you. When the call comes that your executive position has been eliminated, God is for you. When we have to wait, God is at work behind the scenes…working on our behalf. 

Most people don’t like to wait at all. We waited at Mercy Hospital for 25 days when God raised my husband from death, healed him from two strokes and healed him through two-open heart surgeries. That was intense waiting. BUT GOD brought life where there was death, healing where there was sickness, and Jesus is alive today. He is seated at the right hand of the Father praying for us that our faith will not fail.

Other times of waiting are for our benefit as well. God does the most amazing things when we pray and wait on Him. We eventually learn that all our help comes from the Lord. 

Several months ago, a friend’s car was leaking oil so she took the car to the dealership. The representative informed her the engine would have to be torn apart to find the problem. She drove a loaner car for several months through all the waiting. As a matter of fact, she also rear-ended a driver in stop and go traffic while driving the loaner car and had to get another rental car at that point. She was very frustrated and when she learned that the manufacturer was not going to replace her car engine, she was highly upset and almost panicked. It had been nearly six months. 

We prayed that God would intervene. She was aggravated because she couldn’t find all of her receipts for the oil changes and the dealership didn’t seem to have a record for two of them. Without the receipts, it appeared she might not have had the oil changed as required…but she knew she had done so. We simply asked God to intervene. 

The next day she heard on the news that her particular make and model of car was being recalled for engine failure. I explained to her that the long time of waiting was so the truth could come out about her particular vehicle and the recall. 

God never ceases to amaze me. She called the manager at the dealership, emailed him the article, and got the call the next day that she would get a new engine at no cost to her. Times of waiting are for our benefit. It doesn’t matter how large your prayer request is, or how severe the attack you may be walking through—Jesus is alive and He answers prayer. 

I recently wrote a blog: THE POWER OF PRAYER CHANGES EVERYTHING, and the very day I shared it I got to experience exactly what I wrote at 3 AM earlier that morning. On the drive into Charlotte, my cell phone fell out of the cupholder onto the floor on the passenger’s side of my car. Not sure how it fell out…I thought maybe an angel knocked it out onto the floor to get my attention. 

I thought I needed my phone but knew that I would have to pull off at the next exit to pick it up…or so I thought. The LORD had different plans. The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart to pray in the Spirit and to keep driving. We have direct connect with God at all times…even without a cell phone in hand. That is great news my friends!

I prayed for several miles when I noticed that right in the middle lane of I-77 (during rush hour traffic) cars started slamming on brakes everywhere but no one actually wrecked into the large truck and trailer that was stalled in the center lane with lights flashing.  It was amazing to me that no one wrecked. Cars were all over the place going in wrong directions…stopped…but with no accidents. That was a miracle. It was as if an angel of the Lord was standing in the highway and rerouted and blocked cars from hitting each other. It was totally amazing. 

The power of prayer changes everything. God goes to extreme measures to get our attention. He wants us to pray and use the gifts we have been given to impact nations. His love is amazing. His ways are past finding out. He uses us as vessels to bring His Will to pass here on earth. Nothing is too small or too big to pray about. 

We must choose to heed the warnings to pray immediately. No matter if you feel your heart is ripped out due to abandonment, betrayal, a bad medical report, divorce, emotional baggage, or fear…God wants to help you. You may have been adopted and still feel the pain from rejection. You are accepted in Christ and He is wants to heal you. He is our healer. 

Don’t you dare believe the lies of the enemy—God has the final say! You can triumph over tragedy by turning to God and obeying His Word. God wants to turn the drama to destiny, your pain to purpose, your mess to a message, and your heartache to reaching back for others who are hurting. He wants you to step into divine purpose and to pursue Him with your whole heart. 

Thank God all our help comes from the Lord. Keep praying and keep on believing. God is at work on your behalf. Trust Him in times of waiting. If He will do it to encourage my friend over a car, just think about how much more He cares about matters of the heart. God will change the entire order of an ordinary day for one person. He wants us to focus on Him, do what He tells us to do in excellence, and be a servant leader….one who is more concerned about people than power, prestige, position, or things; one that is focused on “how well” rather than “how much”…. Dare to believe God and know this…..all our help comes from the Lord. He was crucified on the Cross. He rose. He ascended into Heaven and He is coming back again!

Have a blessed Easter Sunday…..He is RISEN! 

PRAYER: 

“Father, I thank you that my life, my children, my business and all that pertains to me is covered by the Blood of the Lamb-Jesus. No weapon that is formed against me will prosper. There is a blood line that the enemy can’t cross over. When we make a mistake, His blood still cries out for mercy. They may have crucified Jesus’ body—but the power is in the blood! He is risen and reigns Lord over all. Jesus defeated Satan and took away the keys to death and hell. I choose life in Jesus!”

Jesus loves you with an everlasting love.

His love and mine,

Deborah Starczewski

“My help comes from the LORD, the Creator of heaven and earth!” (Psalm 121:2 NET). 

BOOKS BY DEBORAH STARCZEWSKI

GOD’S PRICELESS TREASURE (How To Overcome Challenges, Be Transformed And Know Your Purpose)  …move from drama to destiny, pain to purpose, a mess to a message, a trial to triumph.

A LEAP OF FAITH (25 Days At The Mercy Seat)…the miraculous account of God raising my husband from death, healing from two strokes, two open-heart surgeries.

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR (Will America Turn Back To God?)..A must read!

SHIFT HAPPENS….sold at events

Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, www.starministriesinc.com and other distributors

God is doing AWESOME things in the earth. He wants to do greater things through you. Your bold confidence in God makes the enemy nervous. 

You have the mind of Christ….if you are born again, and are renewing your mind. God wants to fill you with divine wisdom and revelation. 

God is giving you wisdom to take uncharted territory. What are you afraid of? Your marriage falling apart? Your children straying? Are you afraid of accidents, being alone, death, failure, financial issues, the future, old age, sickness, to doing something new? Are you afraid your business will fail or you won’t have insurance after the next election? Perhaps you worry that you will never find that perfect mate. Or maybe you are afraid you have messed up too much and that God doesn’t love you, that He won’t forgive you, and that God finds you unacceptable to Him. 

Wow….to be human is to be vulnerable, with all its feelings and emotions and times of weariness due to struggles in life. Satan plays negative tapes, and plays on these areas of weakness, accusing us day and night. He is relentless in his evil plots to destroy lives. 

God goes to extreme measures to make Himself known to us. Satan goes to great lengths to deceive all mankind. Satan comes at a young age to cripple you so that you never step into your full destiny with God. Satan wants your thinking messed up so you have wrong perception and rejection issues. He wants you to have a root of bitterness in your heart so that every little thing sends you off the charts, firing off at the mouth, and spewing things you later regret.

When you have an unhealed heart and don’t know your worth and value in the sight of God, you may roll your eyes and assume wrong things about people that God has sent to help you, steer you back on track, or to totally bless you beyond your wildest imagination and dreams. The enemy of your soul wants you to live offended and to miss God’s best.  

Choose today…to step into greater destiny by allowing God to heal your heart and to rule and reign where you have not allowed Him to be LORD. It may be your mouth, your emotions, or it may be your character….God wants you to be the same person…from home….in the car….to the office…to the church. 

God wants you to be in health and to prosper. He wants you to live the abundant life through His Son Jesus Christ. He wants to connect you in divine alignment for divine assignments with other people. 

It’s time to STOP worrying, stop believing the lies of Satan, and stop listening to his lies in the first place. In this life, we are all engaged in spiritual warfare. No matter if you believe it or not, there is a war going on around us all…between good and evil.

We must accept the clear evidence of God’s love for us, remembering always that the battle belongs to the LORD.

Take a look at the promises associated with God’s name in Scripture: THE LORD OF HOSTS: Yahweh Tsebaoth 

“Be still, and know that I am God!

I am exalted among the nations,

I am exalted in the earth.”

The LORD of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our refuge. (Psalm 46:10-11 NRSV)

O LORD of hosts,

happy is everyone who trusts in you. (Psalm 84:12)

Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. (Zechariah 1:3).

Remember that no one can thwart the plans of the Lord of HOSTS (Isaiah 14:24-27)

Then those who revered the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the LORD and thought on his name. They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them. (Malachi 3:16-17 NRSV).

The stop sign is a the one I saw every morning I left the hospital to go home and shower and change when my husband spent 25 days in Mercy Hospital…through two open heart surgeries. The full account is in my book: A LEAP OF FAITH (25 Days at the Mercy Seat). Look at the Father’s love 

Don’t live through your emotions…live by faith. Don’t allow fear to stop you…..press through…and partner with God so He can reveal divine connections, divine alignment, and divine assignments for your future……YOU CAN DO IT!

RESOURCES FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH: www.starministriesinc.com

Books by Deborah Starczewski available on-line on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Xulon.com, etc.

GOD’S PRICELESS TREASURE (How To Overcome Challenges, Be Transformed and Know Your Purpose)

A LEAP OF FAITH (25 Days At The Mercy Seat)

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR (Will America Turn Back To God?)

Animals look to the light as you can see by the picture of my dog Prince Christmas “BEAU” gazing up at the lights on one of our Christmas trees. I love Christmas! Don’t you? I enjoy the decorations, wrapping gifts, festivities with family and friends, and all the celebrations in honor of what Jesus did when He came as a baby, gave His life on the Cross, and is seated at the right hand of the Father—interceding for us that our faith would not fail.

Jesus came that we might be set free and have life and more abundantly. In Him we experience all God intended for our lives when we choose to look toward Him and totally surrender our lives to Him in obedience.

If you want to enjoy Christmas this year with family and friends, choose not to be offended. Yes, it is a choice. Being offended blocks your ability to hear God and blocks your blessings from Him as well. When you are offended at someone, you are unable to receive from that person as well. You might be offended at a coworker or even your boss, but choose to forgive.

You may be in a tough situation and not like the way people or even family are treating you, but choose to forgive and give God the room to make every crooked place straight. Look to Jesus and choose to share the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by loving people right where they are in life. That doesn’t mean you condone sin or wrong behavior, it simply means you choose to walk in the love of God where they are held accountable to God.

Emotions can run high and conflicting schedules can cause tempers to flare and voice tones or even words to escalate in volume. Choose to be a peacemaker and look to the light—asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the real issue of heart. People who are hurting about past issues or those who are not choosing to forgive can react to anything and with wrong perception, they can hear and see everything as negative—even words that are not intended that way.

People can flip out like a switch over packaging tape and all sorts of minor things; from parking places to not remembering where they placed their phone the last time they used it. Sometimes people are not emotionally whole and they can become crazy makers…do you know any? You might be one yourself. People can be nice one minute and erupt like a volcano the next when they are dealing with too much stress, are overly tired, or when they are not emotionally whole in some area. People can also flip out when being convicted by the Holy Spirit, and become defensive rather than repenting.

I taught a class recently on being emotionally whole and a couple asked me to share the information in hopes it would encourage someone else as it did them. The Book of Galatians is our book of study and we have been focusing on salvation because of Grace and simple faith in Jesus Christ alone. We have also studied how the Law and Grace do not mix—but bring about confusion.

People can get offended over stupid stuff, minor issues, everything from the way someone looks at them or doesn’t acknowledge them, the lack of a returned phone call, to rigid schedules. We live in trying times with hurting people hurting others.

The enemy comes to divide and destroy from within much like the Trojan horse that was used to bring about the destruction of Troy. Many times people blame the devil for their actions, when in reality it is the flesh and a heart that is hardened in some area or wounded from something in the past. Satan gets blamed for many things he doesn’t even do. You must choose to have a heart that is tender toward God and that is not going to be offended at mankind. It is a choice—much like the choice of making your marriage work, friendships, relationships, to going to work on a daily basis.

We are living in a time Jesus warned us about that would happen in the last days—where even family members have turned on one another, and we must choose to come to the unity of faith in order to accomplish what God has called us to do with Him in this final hour. He has called each of us to do something with Him specifically. He has called us to occupy (be “a doer” as a Christian and not merely a hearer and professor) until He comes.

God has a divine plan and purpose for every person and every person matters in the tapestry of life. I shared about this in my first book: GOD’S PRICELESS TREASURE (How To Overcome Challenges, Be Transformed and Know Your Purpose). We must choose to lay aside resentment, bitterness, backbiting, choose to forgive all, and lay aside all sin as far as it depends upon us so that we may seek peace with all mankind.

(One woman who read my first book shared how God used it to heal her from 25 years of living with an unforgiving heart that she didn’t realize she had.) Forgiveness is a choice—just like choosing not to be offended.

We must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and watch Him avenge us, bring about reconciliation like only He can do, and flow in His anointing to defeat the spirit of antichrist that has risen up against believers. We do this on a daily basis by submitting and surrendering to the leading of the Holy Spirit and by standing up in our God-given authority because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Whatever God has called you to do, “just do it.” (John 2:5)  If He has spoken to your heart to start a new business, choose to do it. If He has spoken to your heart to open a counseling office, move forward and do it. If He has spoken to your heart to run for a political office, do it. If He has spoken to your heart to publish a book or books, start writing and do it. Whatever God has spoken to your heart to do will bring light to someone else and meet needs. It will bring hope and encouragement to others.

Look to the light this Christmas and every other day throughout the year. Choose to be like Jesus to others and live like it is Christmas on a daily basis. Let me remind you of something vitally important; if you choose to be offended, your focus will turn to self and off of God and helping others. Turn to Jesus. Turn to the light and allow the light of His Word to shine brightly in you and through you to a world that is in need of a touch from the Master—His Name is Jesus! He is the light of the world!

I pray you enjoy this Christmas with family and friends!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

DEBORAH STARCZEWSKI