Preferring One Another to Love One Another - August 25, 2020

 Morning by Morning, August 25 - Preferring One Another to Love One Another

 

Good morning, Lord Jesus. Be at the center of my heart and the forefront of my mind, as I begin my day seeking to follow You and be more like You today. ...

 

"We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. For Christ did not please Himself; but, as it is written, 'The insults of those who insult you have fallen on Me.' For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glory the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 15:1-6).

 

Lord, show me where I think I'm strong but am really weak. Show me where I think I'm weak but am really strong. And all the while, show me how to take my eyes off of myself and lift them up to You. Then as I look to You, You'll show me how to see my neighbors around me and all in relationship with me with Your eyes, how to encourage them with Your words, how to love them with Your heart.

 

As we seek to do that for one another, each will be seen, each will be encouraged, each will be loved, as each one needs. Then we can "have hope" in the good things and certain promises You've set before us. Then we can "live in harmony with one another." Then "together (we) may with one voice glorify the God and Father our Lord Jesus Christ."

 

This is one of the ways we're to "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). This is one of the ways we're to "be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another" (Romans 12:10). This is one of the ways we're to "fulfill the royal law according the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (James 2:8). And this is one of the ways we're to "come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.... Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ ... as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love" (Ephesians 4:13-16).

 

In our human condition and daily journey of death to our flesh and life to our spirit, we desperately need You to show us Your boundaries and give us Your balance. You desire to set the boundaries for us in pleasant places and with the right spirit (Psalm 16:6). We need Your wisdom as much as we need Your love. So we ask for it, trusting the promise of Your Word to receive Your wisdom in the measure we need, as we humble ourselves to ask (James 1:5).

 

As I've heard one of my spiritual mentors speak many times, "Scripture tells us all to humble ourselves before the Lord, but never tells us to humble somebody else." True humility is one of the greatest indications of spiritual maturity. As we humble ourselves in Your sight, You will lift us up (James 4:10). As we humble ourselves in Your sight, we don't have to build ourselves up or pull anybody else down; You will build us up. And as we walk in humility with one another, bearing with one another, preferring one another, loving one another, seeking Your boundaries and right balance with one another, we will grow and mature with one another into "the measure of the full stature of Christ" we are called to be. As You are, so are we to be in our world (1 John 4:17). In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged today! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays

My Friend, may you be lifted up in God's love and grow in God's grace, as He gives you wisdom for good boundaries and love for good relationships, while you humble yourself in His sight to ask for His help, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friend!

  

    

Praise Report: Pakistan Skype Internet Ministry Yesterday!

Thank you for all your prayers and support! We're praising God for what He has done in our Pakistan Meeting and excited to share this Praise Report from Pastor Fazal who partners with us to set up these Outdoor Evangelistic Crusades in a different village every month through our Skype Internet Ministry: "Thanks very much to share Wonderful Message with people of Pakistan in Village. Thanks Lord 359 Souls are Saved and 18 People healed from different things! God Bless You More and More Pastor Tommy."

Praise God! Thank You Lord Jesus! Thank you for all your prayers for us and our ministry, my friend! God bless you!

Healing Academy in Fredericksburg, Texas

Please keep us in prayer as Rocio and I travel to Fredericksburg, Texas for a Tuesday Night Series the next several weeks teaching our Healing Academy at Bridge Church. I'll be teaching from the principles of my book

Free to Be Like Jesus!

-Transforming Power of Inner Healing & Deliverance

   

Amazon.com/AuthorTommyHays

New Mailing Address for Messiah Ministries:

Tommy & Rocio Hays

Messiah Ministries

17503 La Cantera Parkway, Suite 104407

San Antonio, Texas 78257

Tommy & Rocio Hays | Messiah Ministries

Messiah-Ministries.org

Please share this word to encourage a friend!

The Leprosy of Loneliness and the Disease of Distance - August 24, 2020

 Morning by Morning, August 24 - The Leprosy of Loneliness and the Disease of Distance

 

Good morning, Lord Jesus. As best as I can and all by Your grace, I entrust this day and my life into Your hands and Your will -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God. ...

 

I went into the grocery store this weekend and noticed the big sign on the door, "Face Mask Required." And of course, everyone was wearing their mask. But though we were all together in a crowded place, albeit six feet apart, it still felt really lonely. Gone were the warm smiles and welcoming greetings we're accustomed to in our part of the world, even among strangers. And it felt a little like we were all suffering from the leprosy of loneliness through this disease of distance.

 

The Scripture came to mind of the Old Testament leprosy laws: "The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, 'Unclean, unclean.' He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp" (Leviticus 13:45-46).

 

Lord Jesus, we need You to come into our loneliness. We need You to heal our disease of distance. Connect us in love. Cure us with kindness. Cause our eyes to smile even when our mouths can't or at least can't be seen. Fill us afresh with a joy that can't be silenced and a hope that can't be suppressed.

 

And just as this disease and these masks seem to separate us from one another, there is no greater sickness or disease than the sin that separates us from You. There's no deeper loneliness than living a life apart from You -- for these few moments on earth and for every moment of our eternity.

 

Without You, we'll be forever "unclean." And without You, we'll be forever lonely. So even use all we're going through in our world to draw every soul who will respond into the embrace of Your love and the mercy of Your grace. You're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance by turning to You and receiving Your healing, saving love (2 Peter 3:9). "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

 

Give me eyes to see the unclean and the lonely around me today. With a smile in my heart, with the kindness of my eyes, with the power of a prayer or with the encouragement of a word, let another soul come to know You and Your love today. May they live out the rest of their lives on this earth and throughout all eternity with no leprosy of loneliness and no disease of distance between You and them, where no mask is required. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged today! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays

My friend, may you be filled with a joy that cannot be silence and a hope that cannot be suppressed, letting the kindness and love of the Lord flow through you -- wether through your prayers or in person -- to touch the life of someone who feels lonely or unclean today, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friend!

 

    

Pakistan Skype Ministry Today!

Today will be our Next Outdoor Evangelistic Crusade in Pakistan where we have seen hundreds saved by the Lord, with much healing and freedom, every month in our partnership with Pastor Fazal in a different village outreach each month through our Skype Internet Ministry. It will be morning for us and evening for them, after work. Please keep us in prayer an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit and Power and Love!

New Mailing Address for Messiah Ministries:

Tommy & Rocio Hays

Messiah Ministries

17503 La Cantera Parkway, Suite 104407

San Antonio, Texas 78257

Tommy & Rocio Hays | Messiah Ministries

Messiah-Ministries.org

Please share this word to encourage a friend!

"I Will Divide ... Just as I Will Unite" - August 21, 2020

 Morning by Morning, August 21 - “I Will Divide ... Just as I Will Unite”

 

Good morning, Lord Jesus. King of Kings and Lord of Lords, be King of my heart and Lord of my life, as I seek Your face and listen for Your voice (Revelation 19:16; John 10:27).  ...

 

As I listen and look this morning, a scene is forming before me in prayer. I see a knife cutting across a map of America. It’s cutting deep and the paper on both sides of the cut is lifted up and I see an old table underneath the map. ...

 

My first thought is, “This is division in our country.” And it takes no prophetic vision or even vain imagination to see that. But I believe I hear Your words coming to my heart: “I will divide what I will divide, just as I will unite what I will unite.” ...

 

This Scripture immediately comes to mind: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:34-39).

 

Coming from a time of prayer and fasting for unity and reconciliation in my city, with so many others from so many different branches of the Body of Christ, this image is a little jolting and honestly kind of seems like it’s “cutting against the grain” of what we’ve been praying and doing. Is that right, Lord?  ...

 

What comes to my heart is this: “You have been praying and fasting for revival, not unity. My true unity comes out of right alignment with Me and My Word and My Spirit. I will unite what I will unite, but I will divide what I will divide. And because there is a greater unity of My Body, now I can divide what needs to be divided. I am now cutting out what needs to be cut out and I am stripping away what needs to be stripped away. I am revealing what needs to be revealed. And I am establishing what needs to be established.” ...

 

This written Word comes to mind to confirm what I sense is Your spoken word in my spirit: “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before Him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the One to whom we must render an account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

 

Yes, Lord. Like the knife exposed the table, let the Word of God, let the living and active words of God You’re speaking by Your Spirit into our hearts, expose the truth and judge our hearts. Cut away any false unity. Cut away compromise with anything that would exalt itself in the place only You are to have in our hearts and in our land.

 

Bring Your unity. Reveal Your truth. Set Your alignment. Establish Your order. Divide what needs to be divided and unite what needs to be united. By the power of Your grace at work within us and at work within our land, may we be one with You and one with one another -- without compromise, without false unity, without unholy alignment with anything less than Your will and Your ways with Your priorities in our hearts. 

 

Lord Jesus, Your high priestly prayer of true unity, as the Son of Man on this earth before ascending back to the Father, comes to mind:

 

“But now I am coming to You, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have My joy made complete in themselves. I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.... Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You have sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.... I ask not only behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one. As You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, may they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that You have given Me I have given them, so that they may be one, as We are One, I in them and You in Me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me” (John 17:13-23).

 

In true unity, in right alignment, divide what needs to be divided and unite what needs to be united -- here in my heart, here in our land, here in our world. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged today! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays

My friend, may you test and discern every word in your heart you sense is from the Lord, and allow Him to divide what He desires to divide and unite what He desires to unite, that you may be one with the Lord and one with His Body in true unity of His Word and His Spirit according to His will and His ways, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friend!

    

August 24th will be our Next Outdoor Evangelistic Crusade in Pakistan where we have seen hundreds saved by the Lord, with much healing and freedom, every month in our partnership with Pastor Fazal in a different village outreach each month through our Skype Internet Ministry. Please keep us in prayer!

New Mailing Address for Messiah Ministries:

Tommy & Rocio Hays

Messiah Ministries

17503 La Cantera Parkway, Suite 104407

San Antonio, Texas 78257

Tommy & Rocio Hays | Messiah Ministries

Messiah-Ministries.org

Please share this word to encourage a friend!

"I Keep My Eyes Always on the Lord" - August 20, 2020

 Morning by Morning, August 20 - "I Keep My Eyes Always on the Lord"

 

Good morning, Lord Jesus. Be at the center of all I am and all I do today. ...

 

"I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken" (Psalm 16:8).

 

In every challenge, every circumstance, every moment of my day, I have a choice of where I will look. And where I'm looking larging determines where I'm going.

 

Will I look to my problems? ...

No, "I keep my eyes always on the Lord."

Will I look to my past failures? ...

No, "I keep my eyes always on the Lord."

Will I look to man and other peoples' opinions about me and judgments over me? ...

No, "I will keep my eyes always on the Lord."

Will I look to the darkness of my world, with all its chaos and confusion, hatred and fear, violence and lawlessness, injustice and unrighteousness, dread and despair? ...

No, "I will keep my eyes always on the Lord."

 

I don't ignore those things. But I don't focus the priority of my attention on those things. I don't allow those things to define me or control, to limit me or label me. I don't honor those things by having more faith in those things and their power of destruction than my faith in my God and Your power of redemption. No, "I will keep my eyes always on the Lord."

 

As I wait and listen, I hear in my heart: "Look to Me and keep your eyes on Me. Listen to Me and keep your heart turned to Me. See that I am with you. Hear that I am leading you. Know that I am abiding within you and will not let you be shaken even when things are shaken around you." ...

 

Yes, Lord. Your written Word immediately comes to mind to confirm Your spoken word in my spirit: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29). And by the power of Your grace, by the abiding presence of Your Holy Spirit, Your unshakable kingdom is within me (Luke 17:21). "For the kingdom of God is ... righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17).

 

So as best as I can and all by Your grace, I choose this day to keep my eyes always on You -- always listening for Your leading, always trusting in Your abiding presence of Your Holy Spirit within me. And as I do, I will not be shaken, for You are establishing in me a kingdom that cannot be shaken. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged today! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays

My friend, may you unshakeable in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit abiding in you, as you keep your eyes always on the Lord, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friend!

    

August 24th will be our Next Outdoor Evangelistic Crusade in Pakistan where we have seen hundreds saved by the Lord, with much healing and freedom, every month in our partnership with Pastor Fazal in a different village outreach each month through our Skype Internet Ministry. Please keep us in prayer!

New Mailing Address for Messiah Ministries:

Tommy & Rocio Hays

Messiah Ministries

17503 La Cantera Parkway, Suite 104407

San Antonio, Texas 78257

Tommy & Rocio Hays | Messiah Ministries

Messiah-Ministries.org

Please share this word to encourage a friend!

Safety and Abundance in the Shelter of the Almighty - August 19, 2020

 Morning by Morning, August 19 - Safety and Abundance in the Shelter of the Almighty

 

Good morning, Lord Jesus. You're welcome here in my heart and every moment of my day -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God. ...

 

Like most mornings, my wife Rocio's first words to me were, "I had a dream last night." She had a baby in her arms and was looking for one of the grandchildren. There had been a great catastrophe of some kind. Someone told her there was a place prepared for her. When she saw it, she was full of joy because there was our grandchild she was looking for and there were many places to live that were all for us and all our family. She said the word 'Abundance' came to her as she woke up in joy and peace, excited to share her dream with me.

 

Your Word from Psalm 91 immediately came to mind:

 

"You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, 'My Refuge and my Fortress; my God, in whom I trust.... Because you have made the Lord your Refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. Those who love Me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know My name. When they call to Me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them. With long life I will satisfy them, and show them My salvation" (Psalm 91:1-16).

 

Yes, Lord. You are our Shelter, our Refuge, our Fortress, our Dwelling Place. You are the Almighty! You have prepared a place for us, for all who trust in You and call on Your name. And that Place is You. You are the Place of Your abundant provision and steadfast protection. In that Place, we will rest in You and look with our eyes to see all You have done for us from the safe and secure Place of Your Presence, no matter what happens around us (v. 8).

 

In the arms of the Almighty, You are our Abundance. You provide all we need according to Your riches in glory (Philippians 4:19). "Now to Him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever! Amen!" (Ephesians 3:20-21) In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged today! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays

My friend, may you be safe and secure in the abundance of all the Lord has prepared for You in your Father's arms, in the Shelter of the Almighty, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friend!

    

Pakistan Ministry through Skype Internet Ministry.

Thank you so much for all your prayers for our Pakistan Ministry Saturday at the Pastors and Leaders Meeting! We had some technical challenges, but pressed through. Praise God! Powerful times of teaching and ministry with the Pastors and Leaders! Many tears and much joy through the times of ministry after the teaching sessions. Went from Midnight to 4:30AM our time. He said they were extremely encouraged and want much more! I mostly spoke into their personal journey with God with the idea of David's 5 Smooth Stones in his "Shepherd's Pouch" the Holy Spirit showed me in my devotional time:

1. The Word of God  (Hebrews 4:12)

2. Faith and trust in God (Hebrews 11:6)

3. Intimacy with God (John 15)

4. Security in our Identity as Children of God (Romans 8)

5. Our Confidence in God to Fulfill His Purposes in our Lives (Jeremiah 29:11; Ephesians 2:10).

Sling of faith; release of the stone with authority and power; rock that hits it's mark and brings down the giants (Fear and Intimidation / Death and Sickness / Persecution and Oppression)

Finished with speaking about taking Authority from story Moses in Exodus 14 and prayers of Impartation and Anointing (Romans 1:11 / 1 Timothy 4:14 ) 

We couldn't do this kind of ministry without you! Praying God's blessings and great joy upon you!

 

August 24th will be our Next Outdoor Evangelistic Crusade in Pakistan where we have seen hundreds saved by the Lord, with much healing and freedom, every month in our partnership with Pastor Fazal in a different village outreach each month through our Skype Internet Ministry. Please keep us in prayer!

New Mailing Address for Messiah Ministries:

Tommy & Rocio Hays

Messiah Ministries

17503 La Cantera Parkway, Suite 104407

San Antonio, Texas 78257

Tommy & Rocio Hays | Messiah Ministries

Messiah-Ministries.org

Please share this word to encourage a friend!