How to Get Out of a Pressure Cooker

by Olga Hermans

Have you ever wondered why the Lord just doesn’t take away all the problems that steal your time and make you feel as though you are in a pressure cooker?

Whatever your call in life, God has a special grace to enable you to be an achiever. There are pressures that keep us from maximizing our time and frustrate the fulfilling of our goals. Even when goals are set and schedules are made it often seems everything that could happen to prevent us from using our time efficiently and effectively.

There are three major enemies of time with which one must deal on a daily basis: the devil, our circumstances and our flesh. Satan will do all that he can to mess up your circumstances and call on your flesh because his aim is to distort your testimony for Jesus and bring you to failure.

Let’s have a look at the life of Paul; he begged three times to take away the “problems.” I believe the “thorn” that troubled Paul the most was the interference of religious people, both Jews and pagan, who continually stirred up trouble for Paul wherever he went to preach the gospel.

Although God revealed to Paul why he ran into so much difficulty, He did not remove the difficulties. The Lord did something better; He reminded Paul of the grace which would enable him to overcome in every situation. God reminded Paul of the grace which would enable him to overcome in every problem situation.

The devil tried to do everything he could to stop Paul, but he couldn’t succeed. Even when Paul was repeated beaten and even shipwrecked of his life; he overcame by grace. Grace is a word often used among Christians; we talk about it, sing about it, and praise God for it. Have you ever thought about what it means to you?

Not even Jesus was exempt from the pressures of daily interferences, temptations and problems. That might surprise you, but Hebrews tells us that Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are. Jesus was never immune to the devil’s interference. This is the reason Jesus can understand and care about those things that trouble us, and He is the one who will always have an answer to our dilemmas.

Have you, like Paul, realized that you can’t handle pressure or problems by yourself? You know, there is nobody in the world that is so wise and powerful or so experienced and so energized and wealthy and favored that a person could manage every day of his or her life without help.

Recognizing our inability is the gateway to receiving God’s ability. We shouldn’t try to manage our life in our strength; we know it won’t work. I have tried to do this so many times and every time I find out, it doesn’t work!

Making the decision to make God your first priority will also keep you in victory when external pressure comes against you. Is your time yours, or is it the Lord’s? You definitely can avoid a great deal of internal pressure by deciding to live for God and not only for yourself!

I remember the time that my children were little and I had to make a decision to be at home for them or having a nice job somewhere. It was an easy decision, but I still had to fight the thoughts that I wanted to be out there and do things that I also would enjoy doing.
Priorities are so important, aren’t they? When you commit your precious time and your precious things to God, He will multiply your time and protect those things that are dear to you and He will do it in a very exciting way!

However, if you try to hold on to your own things, you will really put yourself in a pressure cooker. Don’t give “the thief” an opportunity to fill your days with confusion and frustration. Don’t let him steal the things you value. John 10:10

Why should we struggle to exchange our ways for His ways? When we wait upon the Lord, He lets us in on secrets of wisdom and advice which we would never get hold of any other way.

I like to think of every task I have to do as an opportunity. After I have established my priorities, schedule my day, and committed every moment to the Lord, I know of a certainty that each task, even an unexpected on, is an opportunity to grow, achieve, and succeed.

No matter what pressures each day may bring, I face the day with the knowledge that I have the victory in Jesus. Each day holds the potential of blessing, achievement, victory, and overcoming. God wants you to give Him the opportunity to bless you and make you a blessing.

When pressure comes, take the opportunity to put God in the midst of it and to demonstrate to yourself and others that you are an overcomer and the devil is a loser.

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Can You Hit The Mark?

by Olga Hermans

Goals are very important; no vision takes shape without goals. You must set goals in order to see your vision become reality; otherwise the visions will be just castles in the air. It takes goals to be able to “hit the mark”.

An archer chooses a target before shooting his arrows. Otherwise the archer will waste his time shooting arrows into “thin air”. Without goals you will never hit the mark and your days will be filled with wasted time.

Do you feel sometimes that you are just wasting time? Sometimes we like to depend upon others for our own goals; we like to seek counsel from others instead of having confidence to seek God for ourselves.

God is pleased with us when we come to Him to find out what He has planned for us from the beginning of the earth and then set our goals after His counsel that He gives us. It takes courage to believe that God would fulfill your goals as we cooperate with Him in the way that He leads us.

How high do you set your goals? Do you work at achieving your goals wholeheartedly? Don’t be afraid to let the Lord lead you in setting good goals. He is behind you 100 percent. Get out there in life and win!

When you have a goal in mind, you certainly hope to see that goal come to pass. You set the end result as the final goal, however, just as each day is measured off in minutes and hours, so your ultimate goal is measured off in smaller steps and stages.

Each step is also a goal, equally important as the ultimate goal, but it is only a part in achieving the final result. The major goals in life are not completed in a day, or even a week. Some may take years and others may incorporate a lifetime.

One of my personal goals for me and for you as my subscribers is to discover the life you were born to live, ignite it with passion and turn it into a profit. I strongly believe that God has anointed us to create wealth to support the work that He is doing in this world.

One of my goals is to create an income online with Young Living Essential Oils and I accomplished my first goal just this week; I received a nice check in the mail from them. That was a goal that I had set in the beginning of the year. We never should despise the small beginnings and give all the Glory to God; He is the one who empowers us to do what we need to do to accomplish what we have set before us.

There are gifts and talents on the inside of you that you need to turn into a profit whether in a ministry or a business; your gifts and talents need to come to the forefront and grow and multiply for others to see them and to enjoy them.

Each and every day is an opportunity to achieve goals and work on others. How very important is it then to make the most of every day.

Our lives are always in transaction and change; nothing ever stays the same. Although we may face some unexpected changes in our lives, we can always be on top of the circumstances with God’s guidance and help; and proper goal setting can make this possible.

God has given us a blueprint for our lives and when we carefully and diligently follow that “blueprint,” each day will be a success leading to more success. No sensible building contractor would start building a house without a blueprint. If he did; it would become obvious to everyone in the end that there was no plan.

So many people go through life without a plan and the end result is equally as disastrous as building without a blueprint. In fact it is much greater tragedy, because the value of a house cannot be compared with the value of a life.

That’s why I am so passionate about the fact when people come to my blog that they will discover the life they were born to live and ignite it with passion and bring Glory to the Lord. Maybe you are thinking now that you made too many mistakes or that your situation has gone too far and cannot be changed.

Or you are at midlife or even older and you are reaping the results of not setting goals. Or you have just become a Christian and you realize that all your goals have been wrong and wonder if it really is possible to have a fresh start. I am here to tell you “YES” it is, it’s NEVER too late to pursue your DESTINY; NEVER!”

One of the most amazing things in the life of Jesus is that He fulfilled goals that had been set for Him, centuries before, through the mouths of the prophets. Jesus has goals for you too. Every promise in the bible is a goal that you can reach. He wants you to walk in abundance.

So, if I were you I would press in on what God has for you; press in and seek first His Kingdom and all those things will be added to you. Jesus wants you to exercise authority over satan and his kingdom. Jesus wants you to be free from anxiety and fear by living in His peace. Jesus wants you to be an overcomer because He overcame every sin for us on the cross.

Have I convinced you that setting goals is really important? Your success depends on the goals you set for yourself. If you don’t plan to succeed, you have already planned to fail. You probably have heard that many times, isn’t?

Let me know in the comment section what you like to achieve and I will come in agreement with you!

Do You Want To Be Right
or Do You Want To Be Righteous?

by Olga Hermans

Have you ever been in a situation in which standing up for your rights meant stepping out of the will of God? People are crying out for their own rights in the streets. The western world has become a performance-oriented people. It looks like everybody is consumed with making sure nobody violates or breaks their own rights.

We should be very thankful that we live in a country where we can exercise our own rights and that we live in a country in which we are guaranteed certain freedoms by our constitution. But what do you do when you encounter a situation in which standing up for your own rights means stepping out of the will of God?

I believe that the time is coming where we as believers are going to be faced with such decisions; decisions that demand that you choose between “rightness” and “righteousness.” The choices that you will have at that given moment are going to determine for a great deal how your destiny will turn out in the time ahead.

It is important that you will embrace your destiny and pursue the righteousness which is of God, through faith rather than needing to be right all the time.

Do you know somebody in your own circle who wants to be right all the time? Someone who just keeps going until you and everyone else know that they were right all along? That’s what rightness is. On the other hand righteousness is a virtue and refers to uprightness. Righteousness holds the basis of your “rights” or “benefits” with God.

When you have God’s righteousness, you have the right to forgiveness of sin, the right to healing, the right to the presence and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, the right to success and the right to security.

These rights were granted to you because God loves you that much and because of His mercy; you didn’t do anything to earn it or to deserve it. It’s all because God loves you and me; He gave it as a gift to us.

I have always wondered why so many Christians are not enjoying the benefits of their righteousness, which means that we are still ignorant of it. If that would not be the case, we would use all these benefits or promises to our advantage.

When we are ignorant of our righteousness in God, we don’t know about the promises to which we have a right. The consequence then is that we will make an effort to establish our own righteousness or rightness.

I have heard many people share a story of a situation where disagreement occurs with someone over a business transaction. The situation might be that you were cheated out of some money. God tells you not to worry about it and that He will take care of it. You have to make a decision at that moment.

Do you do whatever is necessary to prove that you are right? After all, you have been cheated!  Or do you stand in the righteousness of God and trust Him to move on your behalf? The first choice is pursuing your own rightness and the second choice would be that you choose for righteousness.

When you choose for your own rightness rather than righteousness you are concerned with being correct in the eyes of the people around you. When you choose for righteousness; you are definitely concerned about what God thinks and the opinions of people around you don’t matter.

The first choice: rightness is mostly self-centered, because it is all about you. You think you have to defend yourself because you want to look good before man in order to feel good about yourself. You make it very difficult for yourself because you have to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong.

Rightness seeks self gratification and approval from God through good works. In contrast, righteousness recognizes that you are accepted based on what Jesus has done through the shedding of His blood on the cross.

Righteousness on the other hand seeks to please God rather than self and the only way to do that is by faith. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith. When you keep choosing to prove your own rightness to other people, you leave God out of the picture and you’re on your own. At that moment your door is open for the devil and for anything that he wants to throw at you.

But when you seek God’s righteousness first and foremost, God is committed to back you up every step of the way. The first choice puts you in bondage to other people, while the second choice sets you FREE to serve a loving God who loves you so much more than you can ever imagine. He will take care of your reputation, He will back you up and your reputation will be stronger and better than ever.

A good reputation is very important. I’m just saying that you don’t have to run around trying to defend yourself when people accuse you falsely or tell lies about you. We all have enemies. Just don’t get your eyes on them. Keep your focus on the One who is sitting on the throne in heaven and know the Almighty God Who is taking care of you!

It is such a joy for us to be able to trust in the Lord.
Knowing that His eyes never leave us and that He is always there to defend us and fill our heart with excitement!
He has set us apart to bless us with His abundance and surrounds us with His favor as with a shield.
Psalm 5:11

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