Forever Love

In August, God wants to reveal Himself to you as your "Forever Love." Your foundation is being rebuilt as you trust in the fact that you are never alone because He is always with you. He is disrupting the mundane of your daily routine with hunger, and as you embrace humility, there will be grace for you to learn new things. He is healing your body, soul, and spirit this month, and bringing your whole being into glorious alignment. In areas that you have been wounded and trust has been broken, He is restoring a radical trust in Him that will be your powerful anchor.

This month God wants to show Himself to you as your ‘Forever Love.’ As you receive this facet of His love, you will be planted more securely in your knowledge that He is your place of residence. The assurance that you can truly get through anything together will become the bedrock of your heart. Your foundation is being rebuilt as you trust in the fact that you are never alone because He is always with you. God is unchanging: the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The people in our lives can be inconsistent and their presence can be unpredictable, but God is always faithful, always present, always near. Give Him access to the inner circle of your heart, and watch as the assurance of His presence and His love overwhelms you.

HUMBLE HUNGER

“The spiritually hungry are always ready to learn more,
For their hearts are eager to discover new truths.”

Proverbs 18.15 (The Passion Translation)

With our day-to-day routines, it’s easy for all of us to fall into a rut. It’s as if we’re running on a track and we just go around and around and around, hypnotically, methodically, continually. Going to work, taking the kids to school, cleaning the house, preparing meals, on repeat. Exhausted, we fall into bed at night, only to do it all over again in the morning. Often it feels as if we can’t ever get off the track - like there is no escape. We no longer feel passionate about anything because all of our energy is going into just maintaining this pattern and keeping up with everything we’ve put in place in our lives.

We need something to disrupt our course and get us out of our routine, and this month the key to escaping the rat race is hunger. Right now there is a grace for learning. God is awakening a deep hunger within people that only He can satisfy. Humility is required to realize that there’s always more to learn, and it’s in this humility that God can meet us and work with us. We are all in process. The sooner we are able to release our ideals of what we thought we would be like, or the way our lives should look, the sooner God is able to meet us where we are. Our hunger unlocks a humility to realize that there’s always more to learn. Invite God to stir up your hunger today. Ask Him to show you the grace that is available for you to learn.

BODY AND SOUL UNITY

“A joyful, cheerful heart brings healing to both body and soul,
But the one whose heart is crushed,
Struggles with sickness and depression.”

Proverbs 17.22 (The Passion Translation)

God created our spirits, our souls (mind, will and emotions), and our bodies to be intimately intertwined and connected. There is evidence that confirms that when we endure an emotional trauma (soul), it leaves a lasting effect in our body. We know also that our body can try to protect us if we are going through something painful in our soul. The Bible tells us that joy heals both the body and soul, and sickness and depression can be a result of heartache.

Some of you have been struggling with your bodies: fighting chronic illness, fatigue, thyroid problems, infertility, or cancer. Others have been fighting for healing in their souls: experiencing depression, old wounds, heartache, and anxiety. Sometimes we can only get breakthrough in our bodies if we heal our souls, and/or we can only receive the healing we need in our souls if we take care of our bodies. If you’ve not been seeing the breakthrough that you need, it may be time to ask God where to start. Trust Him to know the answer, even if it doesn’t make sense to you. He has the answers to your healing as He is the one that created all of us to be triune beings. So often we ask God for healing, expecting a supernatural cure. There are times that we need to invite Him into our healing journey and trust Him to guide us each step of the way. This month God wants to heal you - body, soul, and spirit. Invite Him to show you where you need healing and ask for the blueprint to your healing journey.

RADICAL TRUST

For many of us, there are places of distrust in our hearts that have come to be through relational wounds with other people. In our past experiences with others, we have learned things that feel like they will always be true: “my friends will always betray me,” “I will always have to be the one to pursue relationship,” or “I’m a bad judge of character.” When we allow these past wounds to be louder than our love, we are allowing ourselves to be ultimately controlled by fear and by circumstances that are not truth. We must be careful not to build our theology on our experience. If we are having trouble trusting people because of how we’ve been hurt in the past, we are most likely struggling to trust God as well.

“The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him” (Psalm 32.10b NIV). Sometimes, the only way forward is to trust God. Making that choice is not something that God can do for us. But the Bible tells us that so many promises are available for those who trust Him, and we know that it is impossible to please God without having faith in Him (which often looks like trust). When we count on God to be who He says He is, He will open doors for us that couldn’t be opened before and He will make a way for us to have deeper intimacy with Him. So much of what God wants to do in our lives comes through our willingness to trust Him. Let down your guard and let Him in. Give God permission to move radically in your life and see what He does!

We at The Crowning Jewels believe in the absolute, transformational power of declarations. We know that truth comes by hearing (Romans 10.17), and speaking truth is an active way for us to renew our minds (Romans 12.2). We also believe that in speaking forth these declarations, you will change your life. We invite you to partner with what God is doing and say these declarations for the remainder of the month. We would love to hear what God does! Please email us your testimony at tellyourstory@thecrowningjewels.com.

DECLARATIONS

I am never alone, for God is always with me.
God meets me where I am when I allow Him in.
My body, soul, and spirit function in glorious unity.
My future is not dictated by my past.
Trust is a powerful anchor in my life.