Hiding your story

 

Every person on this earth has a story. Our lives relate our story. Your story, even though it is your own personal tale, is not meant to be hidden. Stories are for telling.

What has God done in your life? How has Jesus rescued you?

Your story has tremendous potential to expand the Kingdom of God but you’re hiding your story.

“I will sing the wondrous story Of the Christ Who died for me. How He left His home in glory For the cross of Calvary.”

God has given you this new life through Jesus Christ and that story must be told, after all, your story is a unique life message that He has given to you.

Time is short and people are dying to hear the story you have to tell, they’re dying to hear of the victory that Jesus has given to you over sin and death. Won’t you tell your story?

“I was lost, but Jesus found me, Found the sheep that went astray, Threw His loving arms around me, Drew me back into His way.”

Yes, it’s true that your story may contain some things that you’d prefer to remain hidden, especially those things you never want to remember or speak about, but people need to hear.

People need to know of how wonderful it is to be in relationship with Jesus. Sharing your story with others gives glory to God.

“I was bruised, but Jesus healed me, Faint was I from many a fall, Sight was gone, and fears possessed me, But He freed me from them all.”

When you tell your story, as difficult as it may be, Jesus will bring to you and to others, through you, great healing, and renewal.

Jesus made your life new, and He wants to do the same for someone else too, if you’d only stop hiding your story.

Beloved, people are longing for a new life and if you continue hiding your story, it never gets told and you rob them of the greatest gift – a relationship with God through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Won’t you tell your story?

“Yes, I’ll sing the wondrous story Of the Christ Who died for me, Sing it with the saints in glory, Gathered by the crystal sea.”

Amen †

 

Shelley Johnson “Hiding your story” © 2016 (20-Oct-2016) revisited September 24, 2026

Hymn: “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story” – words by Francis H. Pritchard (1886) & Ira Sankey (1887)

Your Unemployed God

God wants you in a position or a place where you need Him – that position where you recognize, without a doubt, that without Him you will never get through. That state of being where you finally come to the realization that with God all things are possible and the only thing you can repeat over and over again to yourself is:

“This is impossible for me, but not for God”

The truth is, God allows you to get to that place so that you will let Him “do” in your life. He longs for you to employ Him in every area, even the smallest of things. God yearns to be a part of your life, but you have to let Him in. Employ your God!

Stop trying to work everything out on your own, instead, seek the hand of God. Apostle Paul assures us in Romans 8 that it is God who works all things together for good for those who love Him, for those whom He has called according to His purpose. That’s you – you love God and are here for a purpose, His purpose; even if it doesn’t seem like it.

Listen, contrary to popular belief, God does not want you bursting your brain figuring out this and that, putting mismatched pieces of your life together like a crazy 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, in an effort to devise solutions to your problems. Only God can do that, and with ease.

Jesus says in Matthew 6:31-33, not to worry or be anxious about anything. He says that God knows your needs. He says to be concerned with God, His Kingdom, and what He requires of you, and God will provide you with everything else.

Employ God, utterly depend upon Him for your every need, whatever the need. David understood this completely, he said, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.” – Psalm 37:4 (AMPC)

Beloved, if you have truly and sincerely accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, then you belong to God; He is your God and His Word says that those who belong to Him, He will sustain:

“Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” – Psalm 55:22 (HCSB)

Take God at His word – do not have Him as your unemployed God. Reach out to Him every single day, whether things are bad or good. He is waiting for your call.

 Amen †

 

 

Shelley Johnson “Your Unemployed God” © 2017 (January 27, 2017) revisited September 23, 2026

Prayer Focus: Pulling Down Strongholds – Time to be Bold

 

“I use God’s mighty weapons, not those made by men, to knock down the devil’s strongholds.”  – 2 Corinthians 10:4 (TLB)

Lord, I pray that You would set me free from anything that holds me other than You.

Deliver me from any memory of the past that has the power to control me or keep me trapped in its grip.

Teach me how to forgive, especially anyone who has hurt me, so that unforgiveness will not be able to hold me captive.

Set me free from everything that keeps me from being all that You created me to be.

Protect me from the plans of the enemy, and cause me to always remember that no-one, including the evil one, can affect the deliverance and healing You want to bring about in my life, after all, Your Word declares that no plan or purpose of Yours can be thwarted (Job 42:2).

Restore all that has been stolen from me until I am lacking no good thing.

I know that in Your presence there is healing and wholeness. Teach me how to live in Your presence so that I can be made and remain totally whole.

Lord, Your Word tells me that “though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4 ESV). So, I know that I cannot use my own human plans and methods to win any battles but instead I use Your mighty weapons.

And today is my time to be bold and declare, in the name of Jesus,  

I pull down any stronghold the enemy has erected around me – the Lord sets me free and I am indeed free.

In the name of Jesus, I declare that for my sake,

God will not rest, until [my] righteousness blazes down like the sun and [my] salvation flames up like a torch (Isaiah 62:1 MSG); He will make the darkness bright before [me] and smooth and straighten out the road ahead. He will not forsake [me]. (Isaiah 42:16 TLB).

Lord, You have said in Your Word that he who walks in [skillful and godly] wisdom will be rescued (Proverbs 28:26 AMP): I boldly declare that I will walk in wisdom and find full deliverance, in Jesus’ mighty name above all names, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, Amen†

 

“Prayer Focus: Pulling Down Strongholds – Time to be Bold” (Adapted from a prayer by Stormie Omartian)

Jesus wants to…

 

Matthew 8:2-3 (GNT), as it is written,

Then a man suffering from a dreaded skin disease came to Him, knelt down before Him, and said, “Sir, if You want to, You can make me clean”. Jesus reached out and touched him. “I do want to”, He answered. “Be clean!” At once the man was healed of his disease.

Beloved like this suffering man, you must never be in doubt of Jesus’ ability to heal you or whether He wants to. The man somehow knew that if Jesus wanted to, if it was His will, He could easily make him clean. The man demonstrated great humility by kneeling before the Lord and strong faith by what he said; his approach was both humble and bold.

This passage shows us that Jesus not only cares, He cares enough to reach out to us and touch us. His touch gives us a sense of comfort and calms our spirits – it’s reassuring. Jesus has compassion for us and is willing to attend to our condition whatever it may be.

Jesus wants to come into contact with us today. He wants to form a very personal relationship with every one of us; Jesus wants to be close to us, to literally touch us wherever we’re hurting – our pain and our affliction.

Jesus wants to fulfill our hearts’ desires because the desires of our hearts are His desires. Jesus has a heart for all of us and wants to bathe us in His love. When we realize the love of Jesus, something happens within us and at once we become clean. We no longer feel shunned or rejected but accepted and embraced by a love we’ve never known. We no longer focus on the condition of our skin, but we feel the cleansing that starts taking place from within.

When we kneel before Jesus, He reaches out, touches us, cleanses us and heals all our diseases because Jesus wants to.

Amen †

Shelley Johnson “Jesus wants to…” ©2013 (20-Mar-13) revisited September 21, 2026

Let your heart and mouth work together

Understand that God has already done everything – blessings, healing, deliverance…everything. He has already provided everything that you need – it’s already there, in the spirit. So how do you get it? Faith!

Faith is the bridge that allows what God has already provided to cross over from the spirit realm into the natural or physical realm. But, having faith is one thing, employing it is another.

Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. I assure you that whoever tells…and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

(Mark 11:22,23 GNT)

“A man will be satisfied with good by the words of his mouth…”

(Proverbs 12:14 HCSB)

Believe, Confess, and Receive! Let your heart and your mouth work together.

“…the word is very near you—it's within your mouth and heart for you to attain."

(Deuteronomy 30:14 ISV)

Beloved, when you truly believe and you confess, faith is released and you will receive.

Amen †

 

 

 

 

 

Shelley Johnson “Let your heart and mouth work together” © 2016 (06-Jun-2016) revisited September 20, 2026

Another Purpose for Healing: Something to Ponder

 

“And so Jesus went throughout Galilee. He taught in the synagogues. He preached the good news of the Kingdom, and He healed people, ridding their bodies of sickness and disease.” – Matthew 4:23 (VOICE)

We all want to be healthy, after all, our health affects the quality of our lives; we all need to be healthy.

When I originally wrote this post, I’d been fighting a very miserable cold for two weeks. I was certainly not feeling well, and I didn’t like it.

That was just a cold, and yes, it was an annoyance, but it made me think about those people in Jesus’ day who were experiencing all sorts of very ill health for years and years, and about His healing miracles.

Throughout the Bible there’s irrefutable evidence that the Lord has always desired for all people to be in good health. According to Scripture, we know that Jesus performed many healing miracles but was His only purpose for doing so a desire for the people of the day to be healthy, or was there another purpose for healing?

Today I’d like to give you something to ponder.

In Jesus’ time it’s clear that sickness and disease were rampant. I imagine that several factors accounted for that, including unsanitary living conditions, poverty, and a lack of advancement in medical science.

Among the list of diseases, blindness was very prominent and we are told of one significant incidence of blindness from birth where the sole purpose of this healing was to display the works of God (John 9:1-3). I’d like to suggest that there was yet still another purpose for Jesus’ healing miracles.

You see, in those days the sick were considered impure and there were very stringent rules and restrictions pertaining to purity which were enforced by the priests in an effort to maintain social standing, economic and religious status, to the point where holiness was equated with purity. Everything was classified according to its degree of purity thereby creating rigid social boundaries.

All sick people were outcasts – untouchable nobodies who were debarred from partaking in every aspect of human society. This exile also applied to worship at the Temple, as the impure were not allowed to enter the Temple area. But Jesus had a different vision, He defied the rules when He went about “healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Matthew 4:23 NIV).

Yes, Jesus had another purpose for healing. He did not want anyone excluded from religious life. Healing made all those people pure again, thereby restoring their status and bringing them out of exile and back into society.

Beloved, Jesus’ healing miracles were a bold and daring statement to the religious order as they proclaimed that anyone and everyone can be a part of the Kingdom of God.

“…heal anyone who is sick, and tell them, ‘God’s Kingdom is right on your doorstep!’” – Luke 10:9 (MSG)

Amen†

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shelley Johnson “Another Purpose for Healing: Something to Ponder” © 2016 (13-10-2016) revisited September 19, 2026

Sift Away Satan, Sift Away

 

"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat." – Luke 22:31 (NIV)

"Satan has asked"…

Many of us are of the belief that Satan has free reign to do whatever he wants to do on this earth, and for the most part, that may be true, however, it is clear from Luke 22:31, that when it comes to those in relationship with Jesus – born-again children of God – he must ask.

But from who does Satan seek permission "to sift all of you"?

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them." – Job 1:6, also 2:1 (JUB)

There are days and then there’s that one particular day when Satan, mixing in with the angels, presents himself before God to ask permission to sift you. Permission is required from God. And now that you know this, another question arises: Why, as a child of God, should God grant Satan permission to sift you?

You must keep in mind that Satan is prowling around the earth like a roaring lion looking for prey, ready to pounce at the mere sign of weakness (1 Peter 5:8). He is an astute strategist who studies his prey carefully. He is looking out for even the tiniest chink in your armour – any kind of emotional instability, angry outbursts, spiritual immaturity, pride, self-righteousness, greed, rage, bitterness; if you’re easily offended, hasty, emotionally wounded, and fearful, you’re ripe for the taking.

Satan’s greatest ally is fear. Fear gives Satan cause to move against you; he will use your fear as his compelling reason for proving his case against you before God, just as he did with Job.

When you operate in fear, you give Satan a legal right to put his hands on you (see Job 1:12; 2;6) and God is legally bound to remove His hedge of protection from around you. Satan couldn’t care less about your good attributes or your great works; he is keeping a keen eye out for those skeletons hidden in the back of your closet – your craven fears.

But cheer up because it’s not all bad news. You see, even though Satan has been given permission to sift, there are boundaries that he’s not allowed to cross. Remember, God always sets the boundaries.

As crafty, powerful and clever as Satan is, he is still a created being, just like the rest of us. Created by God, and therefore subordinate to God and, like the ocean, only able to venture as far as God permits (Job 2:6). As God’s own, Satan can only lift a finger against you under divine imposed limitations, and God will use these times of physical misery for a spiritual purpose.

Look at what Jesus told Peter right after he let him know about the sifting.

"But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." – Luke 22:32 (NIV)

God will use this time of sifting as a set up for His glory to be manifested in you and through you, to give you a testimony to share with others so that by it their faith might be strengthened. He will work all things together for your good and His glory (see Romans 8:28).

Beloved, God is the only one who determines the outcome of your life. He does not gamble with the lives of His children. He has already established a great plan for you.

Even if you have to suffer a little while, know that at the end of it all the genuineness of your faith will be proven and you’ll be as refined as fire refines gold, so, sift away Satan, sift away.

Amen †

 

Shelley Johnson “Sift Away Satan, Sift Away” © 2016 (07-Jun-2016) revisited September 18, 2026