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Christina Cook Lee

Media Producer - Author - Blogger - Songwriter

Nothing WIthout You

Prayer

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New Strength, October 30OCTOBER 30 

Focus: Yours is the power

Matthew 6:9-13 (NKJV) Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom,and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Not only does God Our Father have the right to rule His kingdom, but He also possesses the holy power to rule His kingdom. The act of recognizing Our Father through faith, as the One who possesses holy power, is in essence, praise.

Picture a door in your mind. Imagine God, the source of all holy power, is on the other side of the door. Now imagine Jesus Christ as the door. He is the only Mediator through Whom we are allowed access to the kingdom and power of God. Possession of the key, comes through the Holy Spirit when we receive salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ. When we ‘recognize and acknowledge’ (which is ‘knowing and saying’ that we believe God is the source of all holy power), we turn the key in the lock, and unleash the power of God. It’s actually faith and praise turn the key in the lock.

The power of God, belongs to God. It originates with Him. Psalm 62:11 says, “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God”.

A person who is unwilling to recognize God as the source of all holy power and as the One who possesses the power to perform all things good, deserves nothing from God. The power of God is able to work in us and through us…but it belongs to God. God can give us power, but even when we receive power from God through the Holy Spirit, it still belongs to God. His power comes to us and we are ‘carriers’ of that holy power.

There is a beautiful prayer in Ephesians chapter three, verses 14 through 19.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long                   and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Acts 1:8 says, “…You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The power we have as Christians is ‘licensed’. Divine power doesn’t originate in us, it is placed in us by God. We have no holy power of our own, it is only by God working in us and through us that we become empowered.

Philippians 2:13 says, “…It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.”

James 1:16-17 tells us, “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Jesus said in John 15:5-8, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in Me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

When we stay connected to the Lord, we are partakers of many things. Apart from Him, we are nothing—but with Him, we can do all things because of His strength, power, and love.

Remembering that God is all-powerful and that we are nothing is one of the hallmarks of our faith. By choosing to put our faith and trust in His power and not in ourselves, we will not fail.

Declaration: I will find new strength by recognizing and acknowledging that God is the source of all holy power. By staying connected to Him, He will always lovingly provide for me and keep me in His care.

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book in 2014, by the grace of God. To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse:http://www.youtube.com/user/NewStrengthMusic/videos?view=1&flow=grid

 

Loneliness

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February 6 

 Focus: Finding that Christ really is ‘enough’

John 15:5 (NKJV) (Jesus said) I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

Maybe you’ve had the experience of pouring all your time and attention into a person, only to come to the realization that no matter how much of yourself you invested into that person, the feeling wasn’t mutual. There was something missing. It’s possible you were hoping that by giving of yourself—the other person would reciprocate in some way, or at least show some kind of appreciation.

As human beings, we spend so much of our time, attention, and energy on relationships. How we get along with people seems to have everything to do with our happiness, our peace of mind, our hope, our motivation, how we think, what plans we make…but, should it really be that way? Should ‘people’ be the reason we live and move and have our being? If our life is structured completely around people—no wonder we become depressed and dependent.

By design, God meant for us to draw our satisfaction completely from Him. It was His plan that everything in our life would be an ‘off shoot’ of our relationship with Him. Yet, it’s so common for us to get things turned around. So often, we make our plans without giving much thought toward whether we want what God wants. The really strange thing is how many times we can repeat the process and still not realize that we have it all wrong.

When Christ is the source of our happiness, peace of mind, our hope, our motivation, how we think, what plans we make—everything takes on a different perspective. He says, “Apart from Me—or without Me, you can do nothing.” So, no wonder we feel empty after we’ve poured so much of ourselves into a person or a project when the true motivation was not from Christ. We are left at the end of our efforts with a hollow feeling of disappointment that might even cause us to question our life and purpose.

John 15:5 has a lot of truth for us, if we want to take the time to see it. That hollow feeling of disappointment doesn’t come up when you are living out your purpose because you are one of the branches connected to the vine. That lonely, isolated feeling just doesn’t exist when you embrace the knowledge that you are part of a huge, living being. You are one of many branches—not some lone ranger out there on your own. You are connected to a source of life that will never die. Your energy and sustenance will never give out when it’s coming from God and not from you. God Himself, in the form of Jesus Christ is the vine you are growing out of—and you are not the only branch.

When we live our life embracing the truth—that everything we are and ever will be comes from Him and is for Him—we live with the knowledge that our life definitely does have purpose and we will most certainly produce meaningful fruit.

Everyday takes on a different tone when we think of it as a new ‘mission’. Our existence becomes a lot more interesting when we live in constant fascination of what the Branch Manager is going to instruct us to do next.

When we see our relationships as ‘assignments’ from God—it’s a lot less crushing when we don’t get recognition or praise from people for our efforts. In fact, we can delight in just the opposite. Our reward is in heaven.

God sees each and every act we do—and He is the One who will give us our reward. In fact, we should never expect to get credit from people for something we did for Christ—that is, if it was truly Christ we were doing it for…

Declaration: I will find new strength by gaining a better understanding of my role as one of the many branches connected to the One True Vine.

 

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book in 2013, by the grace of God. To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW5unzXXC0

Prayer

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OCTOBER 30 

Focus: Yours is the power

Matthew 6:9-13 (NKJV) Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Not only does God Our Father have the right to rule His kingdom, but He also possesses the holy power to rule His kingdom. The act of recognizing Our Father through faith, as the One who possesses ‘holy power’, is in essence, ‘praise’.

Picture a door in your mind. Imagine God, the source of all holy power, is on the other side of the door. Now imagine Jesus Christ as the door. He is the only Mediator through Whom we are allowed access to the kingdom and power of God. Possession of the key, comes through the Holy Spirit when we receive salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ. When we ‘recognize and acknowledge’ (which is ‘knowing and saying’ that we believe God is the source of all holy power), we turn the key in the lock, and unleash the power of God. It’s actually faith and praise turn the key in the lock.

The power of God, belongs to God. It originates with Him. Psalm 62:11 says, “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God”.

 

A person who is unwilling to recognize God as the source of all holy power and as the One who possesses the power to perform all things good, deserves nothing from God. The power of God is able to work in us and through us…but it belongs to God. God can give us power, but even when we receive power from God through the Holy Spirit, it still belongs to God. His power comes to us and we are ‘carriers’ of that holy power.

There is a beautiful prayer in Ephesians chapter three, verses 14 through 19.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.                   I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner                   being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and                   established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long                   and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be                   filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Acts 1:8 says, “…You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The power we have as Christians is ‘licensed’. Divine power doesn’t originate in us, it is placed in us by God. We have no holy power of our own, it is only by God working in us and through us that we become empowered.

Philippians 2:13 says, “…It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.”

James 1:16-17 tells us, “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Jesus said in John 15:5-8, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in Me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

When we stay connected to the Lord, we are partakers of many things. Apart from Him, we are nothing—but with Him, we can do all things because of His strength, power, and love.

Remembering that God is all-powerful and that we are nothing is one of the hallmarks of our faith. By choosing to put our faith and trust in His power and not in ourselves, we will not fail.

Declaration: I will find new strength by recognizing and acknowledging that God is the source of all holy power. By staying connected to Him, He will always lovingly provide for me and keep me in His care.

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book in 2013, by the grace of God. To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse: http://www.youtube.com/user/NewStrengthMusic/videos?view=1&flow=grid

AUGUST 23

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Focus: Not making excuses

James 4:17 (NKJV) Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Knowing right from wrong should be obvious, right? But it’s not always. Sometimes we don’t want to make the effort to check out the facts to know whether a particular thing is okay. We go by our ‘gut’ and follow our feelings. Knowing to do right involves knowing the Word of God…or at least taking the time to search scripture and see what it has to say.

James 4:17 is a sobering verse—or at least it should be. There are different ways of looking at the meaning. In one way, it says, if a person knows what is right and doesn’t do it—the fact that they didn’t do what they knew was right makes it a sin. You may have heard of ‘a sin of omission’. It’s when somebody ‘omits’ doing something right—and that’s what this kind of interpretation refers to.

The other meaning is pretty obvious, too. ‘When you know something is wrong and you do it anyway, it is sin.’ This meaning is derived by inverting the principle. Either way you look at it, the knowledge of right or wrong is what we are concerned about.

A person with access to the Word of God can’t really claim ignorance in matters that pertain to right and wrong—and  sin. Someone who didn’t bother to seek for wisdom isn’t free from accountability to the Word. If you know the answers are available and you don’t search them out, you can’t say—‘Well, I didn’t know any better.’

It all goes back to James 4:17 again. If you are faced with making an important decision that could be right or wrong and you know the answers are in the Word, yet you don’t seek them and you decide to do the wrong thing and then claim ignorance—that doesn’t excuse the wrong.

The only thing that excuses our wrongs is the grace and mercy of God through the Blood of Jesus Christ.

When we try to defend ourselves from sin we committed before we knew the Lord ‘because of ignorance’, that is no excuse, either. The whole point of the matter is, we are without excuse. Sin is sin…and when we sin, we really ought to admit it and plead for grace and mercy through the Blood of Jesus and not make excuses about not realizing we did something wrong. That only compounds the issues.

Human nature wants to look right, sound right, feel right, and smell right. It’s hard to admit when we’re wrong. The difficulty of admitting when we’re wrong is the problem that stands in the way of millions of people being able to find the heart to start on the road to recovery.

Even after some of us have started on the journey, we wanted to continue justifying our reasons for allowing our lives to go in the direction they did. It’s easy to blame others for our own choices. It makes us feel better when we think what we did wasn’t totally our own fault. But as long as we place the blame on anyone else but ourselves, we are not truly taking responsibility for our actions. In order for your recovery to ever work, you have to be willing to say that the choices you made were your own. Someone may have influenced you—but you agreed.

It’s not easy to admit it was ‘all your fault.’ It seems much more honorable to think that ‘the devil made you do it’ or another person was the culprit. Sugar coating or glossing over your own guilt is sin, too. The only thing that saves us is admitting we were wrong and pleading the Blood of Jesus Christ.

There will not be true and full forgiveness for our sin until we are able to admit we were fully at fault—no matter how hard that may be. But finally reaching that point is a wonderful day of discovery. Coming to that inevitable conclusion is the beginning of all things in your search for real freedom and peace.

Romans 5:1-5 says, ‘Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who was given to us.

Declaration: I will find new strength by taking full responsibility for all of the wrongs I have committed in my life. I will not try to excuse myself or blame anyone else. I will search the scriptures for truth and claim the Blood of Jesus Christ for my only pardon.Nothing Without You, by Bebo Norman

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book at the end of 2012, by the grace of God.To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse: http://www.youtube.com/user/NewStrengthMusic/videos?view=1

FEBRUARY 6

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 Focus: Finding that Christ really is ‘enough’

John 15:5 (NKJV) (Jesus said) I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

Maybe you’ve had the experience of pouring all your time and attention into a person, only to come to the realization that no matter how much of yourself you invested into that person, the feeling wasn’t mutual. There was something missing. It’s possible you were hoping that by giving of yourself—the other person would reciprocate in some way, or at least show some kind of appreciation.

As human beings, we spend so much of our time, attention, and energy on relationships. How we get along with people seems to have everything to do with our happiness, our peace of mind, our hope, our motivation, how we think, what plans we make…but, should it really be that way? Should ‘people’ be the reason we live and move and have our being? If our life is structured completely around people—no wonder we become depressed and dependent.

By design, God meant for us to draw our satisfaction completely from Him. It was His plan that everything in our life would be an ‘off shoot’ of our relationship with Him. Yet, it’s such a common thing for us to get things turned around. So often, we make our plans without giving much thought toward whether our plans are what God wants. The really strange thing is how many times we can repeat the process and still not realize that we have it all wrong.

When Christ is the source of our happiness, peace of mind, our hope, our motivation, how we think, what plans we make—everything takes on a different perspective.

He says, “Apart from Me—or without Me, you can do nothing.” So, no wonder we feel empty after we’ve poured so much of ourselves into a person or a project when the true motivation was not from Christ. We are left at the end of our efforts with a hollow feeling of disappointment that might even cause us to question our life and purpose.

John 15:5 has a lot of truth for us, if we want to take the time to see it. That hollow feeling of disappointment doesn’t come up when you are living out your purpose because you are one of the branches connected to the vine. That lonely, isolated feeling just doesn’t exist when you embrace the knowledge that you are part of a huge, living being. You are one of many branches—not some lone ranger out there on your own. You are connected to a source of life that will never die. Your energy and sustenance will never give out when it’s coming from God and not from you. God Himself, in the form of Jesus Christ is the vine you are growing out of—and you are not the only branch.

When we live our life embracing that truth—that everything we are and ever will be comes from Him and is for Him—we live with the knowledge that our life definitely does have purpose and we will most certainly produce meaningful fruit.

Everyday takes on a different tone when we think of it as a new ‘mission’. Our existence becomes a lot more interesting when we live in constant fascination of what the Branch Manager is going to instruct us to do next. When we see our relationships as ‘assignments’ from God—it’s a lot less crushing when we don’t get recognition or praise from people for our efforts. In fact, we can delight in just the opposite. Our reward is in heaven. God sees each and every act we do—and He is the One who will give us our reward. In fact, we should never expect to get credit from people for something we did for Christ—that is, if it was truly Christ we were doing it for…

Declaration: I will find new strength by gaining a better understanding of my role as one of the many branches connected to the One True Vine.

Click the video screen for the song, Nothing Without You, by Bebo Norman
Click the video screen for the song, Nothing Without You, by Bebo Norman

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book at the end of 2012, by the grace of God.

To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse: http://www.youtube.com/user/NewStrengthMusic/videos