Before I get into this week’s message, I wanted to share some INCREDIBLE news with you.
ESSENCE magazine has done ANOTHER feature on me! This time on ESSENCE.com as a feature in their ESSENCE Network section! Words really cannot express my gratitude for ESSENCE’s support of me on my journey. It’s moments like these where I sit back in awe of what God can do. This is just the beginning of what He’s ordained for me and you too; all you have to do is believe and receive it with thanksgiving.
I know that it can be difficult to have faith in a world where we can be deceived to only measure life by what we can see with the natural eye. But as you know, faith is the confidence that we hope for will actually happen and it gives us the evidence of things that are not seen, so in order to truly live by faith you are not to judge whether God is working by what you can see.
You may have been praying for the new job, the financial miracle, or the opened door and it still hasn’t happened. The true to key to prayer is not only believing that your prayers are answered but also to receive what you have prayed for. You don’t have to “get” God to do anything all you have to do is receive what He has for you.
When you shift your prayers, hopes, desires and dreams from a request to a finished work then all you have to do at that point is receive it.
So, how do you receive it?
You receive all the blessings and answered prayer in your life by living with a thankful spirit and expressing your gratitude for not only what God has already done in your life but also for His promises and your answered prayers that will soon manifest. Don’t wait until you can see it so you can have a thankful attitude, believe that you will receive and out of your believing and receiving mindset will come a grateful attitude.
God can do more in one day than you can do on your own in several lifetimes. We can be fooled to think that we have to pray for eight hours, do everything right and continuously do something to “get” God to answer, but that’s not living by the grace of God. You can’t do anything to earn His favor upon you, He gives it to you freely.
God asks us to believe when we make our requests known to Him, leave it there with Him and trust that He’s got you! Do you understand that you have the most powerful being living inside of you, walking with you, who is concerned about everything that concerns you? His love for you stretches further and deeper than our finite minds could ever fully understand. This isn’t the time to start thinking that you don’t deserve what He has for you because none of us do. We receive what He has by His grace.
I challenge you for the rest of this week to go from getting mode to receiving mode. Thank God for your prayers and hopes already being done. Put your whole trust in His love for you. Speak those words of thanksgiving out loud as often as you can. If things don’t work out your way, thank God that something better is on its way.
Open your hands and open your heart to receive what has already been ordained for you to have. It’s time to take it into your possession by faith!
XOXO,
Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy
