VL - Issue 18 - November 2015

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REFRESH YOUR SOUL A Wardrobe Change by Kristi Overton Johnson The Christian’s Wardrobe Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. Colossians 3:12–16 Recently, I was at a Christian conference in Orlando, trying to absorb the speakers’ messages, which I knew were wonderful. But I was having trouble concentrating. My shoes were killing my feet, and my strapless bra kept sliding down to my belly button. For hours I wrestled with that annoying, uncomfortable bra. The person behind me was probably silently pleading, “Please, make her stop!” On the way out that evening, I was overwhelmed with the uncomfortableness of those two items. Without thinking, I exclaimed aloud, “I am so tired of wearing things that don’t fit!” As soon as those words left my lips, the Lord, as He often does, brought a spiritual analogy to my heart. He reminded me of how uncomfortable my life used to be when I attempted to wear the “outfits” of the world. For years I’d tried to be someone the world wanted me to be. I’d spoken and acted in the way I thought would please the most people. I had sought after things I thought would bring happiness, satisfaction, fame, and pleasure. Yet, in the end, I always found myself in an internal wrestling match, ever striving to do something or be someone I wasn’t. I finally stepped out of the wrestling ring the day I made this declaration of surrender to the King: “God, I’m tired of trying to be somebody other than who You designed me to be. I’m weary of doing. I’m weary of forcing things to happen. Please, strip away anything that isn’t of You, so I can be free.” I wanted freedom, and I knew that my current path wasn’t ever going to lead me there. It was time for a change. It was time for my life to be transformed through the working of the Holy Spirit. That transformation, however, didn’t happen overnight. In fact, I’m over a decade into it, and I’m still not completely free! But with each step in Christ, I’m discovering my true self, the person God created me to be. I’m becoming free of the pressures of people and the patterns of the world. I’m finding peace and joy as well as purpose and contentment. I’m also moving further away from the uncomfortable, exhausting, and frustrating life I used to live. I don’t know about you, but I want to be free. And I want to stay free! Freedom, however, doesn’t just happen. It takes more than a desire to change. There must be a decision to change, and then deliberate action. Although I declared my desire to change decades ago, taking off the world and putting on Christ is a daily decision that requires a constant surrender of my life to Christ. It requires me to draw close to the Lord by spending time in His Word and in prayer, to continually ask the Holy Spirit to expose any thoughts, habits, and patterns contrary to God’s will for my life. Then, with God’s help, I have to actually remove those things. If you’ve lived the Christian life for any length of time, you know that the world’s outfits (its actions and thought processes) have a way of trying to dress you themselves. But the closer you are to Christ, the more uncomfortable those outfits will be, and the quicker you will recognize them and be able to remove them. So, how about it? Do you feel like you’re in one big wrestling match? Are you tired and perhaps frustrated with the constant cycle of life? Maybe you, too, need a wardrobe change. V HIT IT Kristi Overton Johnson HIT IT HIT IT! is a true, exciting, detailed story of the rise, fall, and resurrection of a real sports champion… Kristi Overton Johnson. Get ready to be challenged, encouraged, and motivated! KRISTI OVERTON JOHNSON d Your Victory May Just Be One “Hit it” Away! Purchase your copy at kojministries.org for $14.00 plus shipping and handling. 6 www.kojministries.org
UNIQUELY YOU by Rick Renner I have struggled terribly with inferiority. Inadequacy, insufficiency, incompetence, and deficiency are just a few words to express the feelings that tried to master my self-image. I learned much from my experience with that struggle, as well as a great truth I found in my studies of 2 Corinthians 10:12 nkjv: “They, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” I believe the principle I discovered in this verse will help you if you’re facing a similar challenge and long to be free. When our teaching ministry was first getting started in the 1980s, I wondered who would ever want to have us minister in their church or conference. My wife, Denise, and I had been living in a small city and had very few contacts beyond our little circle, so it seemed like a logical question. On one hand, I knew God had called us to teach His Word across the earth—but on the other hand, I questioned how that call would work. No one knew who we were. No one had ever heard us teach the Bible. There was simply no logical reason why anyone would invite us to teach the Word in his or her church or conference. We began to schedule meetings in small churches all across the United States. We joyfully walked through every door and took every opportunity that opened for us, even accepting invitations to speak in home Bible studies. But frequently, the enemy would bombard my mind with tormenting thoughts that inflamed the old feelings of insecurity: “This is it for you! You’ll never do anything with your call on a large or significant scale. Your entire ministry will be to small groups of people!” When we would get into our car to leave those meetings, I’d share my struggles with Denise, and she’d try to encourage me. But the devil was hounding me with accusing thoughts of impending IF YOU WILL SIMPLY QUIT COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS TODAY…YOU WILL OPEN THE DOOR TO FREEDOM FROM A SPIRIT OF INFERIORITY SO THAT YOUR UNIQUE GIFTS CAN BEGIN TO SHINE BRIGHTLY AS GOD INTENDED. failure, telling me that I would be insignificant for the rest of my life. I especially felt assaulted when we attended conferences or seminars to hear other speakers. Rather than being blessed by those meetings, I was busy trying to defend my mind against the barrage of negative thoughts that assailed me almost constantly. I vividly recall the devil telling me: “You don’t measure up to other speakers.” “Your style isn’t like theirs.” “You are nothing and you have nothing to offer in comparison to others.” “You’ll live and die a failure because you are too different from everyone else, and you’ll never be accepted.” I fell into the trap of measuring and comparing myself to others—and the end result was always feeling like I fell hopelessly short. The devil literally tried to devastate me with feelings of inadequacy, deficiency, and inferiority. The more I compared myself to others, the more I felt “less than”—that is, until God’s Spirit reached into my heart and set me free! The reason I share this intimate struggle from my past is that I know there are many who compare themselves to others as I once did. In fact, this may be your struggle. If it is, I hope what I found in 2 Corinthians 10:12 will help set you free, just as it helped me find freedom from that terrible mental bondage that almost crippled me and my ministry. When the apostle Paul wrote his second epistle to the Corinthians, he told them that comparing themselves among themselves was not wise. The word wise in this verse was translated from the Greek word sophos, which means specially enlightened, wise, sharp, or bright. This verse could be interpreted: “Comparing yourselves among yourselves is not the wisest, sharpest, or brightest thing to do.” I can attest from personal experience that comparing yourself to others is not the brightest thing to do! It can be a fruitless endeavor that makes you feel worse and even more inferior and insecure than you ever felt before. The word comparing in 2 Corinthians 10:12 is the Greek word sunkrino, and it paints the picture of two or more people standing side by side to thoroughly examine themselves in comparison to one another—and then critically judging to see who is superior among the candidates. One group would be classified as superior, while the other group would be classified as inferior relative to that other group. The simple truth is that such comparing is a fleshly endeavor that produces no spiritual fruit! It puts one up, puts another down, and fails to recognize the manifold, diverse graces of God that exist in the Christian community. The Corinthian believers were fighting among themselves to prove who was the greatest among them. When Paul wrote this verse, he wrote it to continued on page 30 www.kojministries.org 7
Page 1 and 2: REAL PEOPLE | REAL STORIES | REAL H
Page 4 and 5: FROM THE PUBLISHER An Invasion of L
Page 8 and 9: Watermelon on the Rocks by Kristi O
Page 10 and 11: Choose to Live by Todd Ingersoll I
Page 12 and 13: The Train Ticket by Becky Coursen B
Page 14 and 15: FAST AND FURIOUS by Linda Cubbedge
Page 16 and 17: A WORK IN PROGRESS by Kenny Munds M
Page 18 and 19: A WORK IN PROGRESS | from page 17__
Page 20 and 21: BURYING FOX by George Beasely THE M
Page 22 and 23: Under the Hat by It wasn’t the fi
Page 24 and 25: Unbroken Donkey by Carey Morford I
Page 26 and 27: MINISTRY NEWS UPDATE FROM KOJ MINIS
Page 28 and 29: MINISTRY NEWS UPDATE FROM IN HIS WA
Page 30 and 31: God Made a Way by Calvin M. Greetin
Page 32: GIVE FREEDOM Victorious Living PO B

VL - Issue 18 - November 2015

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