Excerpt from the devotion "Contentment" in Form Me, Fire, Me, Fill Me, page 71

...Self can be a dangerous thing. There is always something bigger or better. Our eyes see that there is more to be had. Our ears hear others speak of their possessions and achievements. We strive to reach what is never enough, and become defeated for we are never satisfied...

Copyright 2017 Lynn Lacher

Excerpt from the devotion “Blessed by a Sacrifice of Praise” in Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me, page 169

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Praise. It is my sacrifice and my offering to God. It is that very instance when, in my most difficult circumstance, anxiety is calmed and there is hope for peace. Praise dispels worry, and confusion changes into clarity. Praise will ultimately dispel fear of the unknown and bring His peace and joy.

In praise, I am changed. No matter how difficult my problems or my circumstance—or how fearful the thought—praise changes my outlook. Praise in the midst of hardship breaks down inner walls. Praise in the midst of fear releases faith. When things are hard, fear persists, or problems overwhelm, I will seek reasons to be thankful. I will look for His blessings that slip by unobserved….......................

Excerpt from the devotion, "The Promise at the Summit", Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me, page 185

…Don’t dwell on the emotional pain that hits you when problems overwhelm your heart. That is where you will be defeated. Guard your heart. Regard each problem that arises as a springboard to reach the top. Keep your eyes on your goal. As you climb, each step will become another solid foundation of growth. If you consider each step a means to carry you to the promise at the peak, your climb will not bring despair. It will bring great hope…

Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me 

© Copyright 2017 Lynn Lacher

Excerpt from the devotion "Don't Settle-Move" in Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me, page 5

Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap. —Ecclesiastes 11:4 (NIV)

Settling is not what God desires. If we settle for less, we miss His best… Leaving the safety of our boat, we are called to launch into the depths with Him.

Copyright 2017 Lynn Lacher

Excerpt from the devotion "I Choose You", Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me, page 21

...You call me to do things that seem beyond my strength and ability. I’m so thankful that, in times of weakness, you give me all that I need to accomplish your desire. Often what lies ahead overwhelms my heart, but your will is all that matters. Often others do not understand, and I feel stripped, alone, and vulnerable. It is in that moment that I realize that you are all I need. You were stripped of all support for me. Now you are my constant support and my constant strength. You carry me through fire with your joy still alive and strong. You carry me safely through deep waters that would drown me if you were not my anchor and shield. You are my strong and mighty tower that endures through every moment of life....

© 2017 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com

Excerpt from "A New Heart and Spirit", devotion from Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me, page 65

Was there a time when you informed God of exactly what would bless you beyond measure? You told Him what you just knew was your due? You actually believed your heart was completely His and that it was soft and pliable in His hand, but there was a dissatisfaction of soul that could never find fulfillment. Impatient for your promise, you didn’t realize that part of your heart was growing hard to His Spirit. You were erecting a wall to His love and His will. Obsessed with your promise more than your Father, your ears became deaf. Your eyes lost His vision. Your heart hardened to stone. You were so focused on your great need for fulfillment of your promise that you didn’t even realize when you had left His presence. Suddenly you were alone in a cold and strange land of your own making…..

Excerpt from "My Mask", a devotion, page 159, Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me

....Perhaps the Holy Spirit wants us to open our hearts to someone who has been deeply hurt by something in the past or something that has bound him or her in the present. Do we hold the mask in place? Do we not share our own pain and experience because we are afraid of our own vulnerability? If we do, there is no freedom because the Holy Spirit is held out by our mask. Perhaps we have denied our own healing and healing for someone else....

Allow Me (Excerpt from Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me page 86)

I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. —Jeremiah 31:3 NLT

I experienced the pain of your hurt today. I experienced your battered soul over the thing in your life that separates you from my love. Why can't you just let it go? You are like a drowning man, who instead of reaching for the safety of my forgiveness, holds on to sin that will surely drown him. This thing holds you in bondage and keeps you from feeling my love and forgiveness.  Do you love it more than you love me?  There was a time you were so close to me, and needed me. Do you not need me in your life anymore?  I have sent my servants into your life to draw you back to me. I have sent those who love you with my love and speak to you with its truth. They pray for you day and night and will never stop until I am able to reach you again. Please let this go before you become too calloused to my pleading. I love you with my everlasting love and draw you in unfailing kindness. Listen, my child, I'm reaching out to your heart. Return to me. Allow me to love you again.

Copyright 2017 Lynn Lacher

Waiting... (Excerpt from Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me page 1)

I have never left you.

I am the faint stirring—

That whisper against your cheek

Waking you and lingering.

I’m a prayer from long ago

A remembrance of closer times

When my heart beat as your own.

I wait in your darkest moment

And in your deepest despair

Heart longing and arms reaching

Aching to be near you once more—

Speaking softly

Hoping you will hear

Child, I love you.

Come home.

copyright 2017 Lynn Lacher

Excerpt from "A New Heart and Mind" Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me (page 65)

What is power in my life? Power is simply God flowing through me. No matter how weak or how unaccomplished I might be, when I allow God to work through me, then what I do will be powerful. I need to remember this during days when I seem to slide back two steps after climbing one. No day is a failure when I have given it to God. His use of my surrendered day may not be apparent, but it is real. If I dwell in Him, and He dwells in me, then I will bear fruit. The fruit is not mine to bear. He is the vine. I am the branch that carries the life of the vine to the fruit. For the life of the vine to flow through me, I must surrender all that I am to Him. If I remain in Him and desire only His will and His work, His Spirit will not fail to flow through my life into the lives of others........

Excerpt from "Red Sea Deliverance" Form Me,Fire Me, Fill Me, page 68

Your Red Sea lies ahead. Circumstances press from behind. There is no escape. You can either allow it to paralyze you—or you can step forward in faith. You can either try to control what you cannot control—or you can release your fear to God. At the very edge of your Red Sea, you make a decision. It is not only the edge of your Red Sea; it is the edge of yourself.

Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me (page 33)

Have Confidence

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

—Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

“You are never alone. I am with you,” He gently whispers. “Don’t worry about what tomorrow holds. Today is enough for you. Don’t dwell on what has not even happened. I keep your future from you on purpose. Your faith is precious, and it cost me my life. Don’t sacrifice my love for you by not trusting in me. Trusting and having faith in me comes by hearing and knowing my Word. It comes through an intimacy with me that creates absolute certainty in my faithfulness to you. Learn of me. No problem will be too great or horrible for you to handle. You will soar above whatever might come because you have waited on me instead of trying to take matters into your own hand. You have sought me. You have found my truth. You have taken my Word, and it has become your very life. No matter what your future may hold, it is secure in me. My ways are higher and greater than any other. I am your unassailable defense. Trust me—and nothing shall break the faithful confidence you have in my plans for your life.”

© 2017 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com

In Humility, Victory (Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me, page 193)

 For the Lord delights in his people; he crowns the humble with victory.

—Psalm 149:4 (NLT)  

When you humble yourself before the Lord and give up anything in your life that blocks His presence, you invite His power. When you allow the trials of life to spiritually grow you into His beautiful creation, you invite His victory. Instead of defeating you, those trials inspire you to trust Him more. He crowns the humble with victory.

“Humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor” (1 Peter 5:7 NLT). His power is best understood in humility. Its greatest revelation is found in humility. When He completely owns your heart, pride is more easily defeated. Pride’s power to control your emotions and feelings become less as He becomes more. When your life is about Him, what you spiritually see, perceive, hear, and understand is not yours to own. Your life is His, and there is nothing for you to gain. There is nothing to prove. There is nothing to declare that He can’t call into existence.

When you lay everything down, you become His instrument to use as He wills. When you humble yourself under His hand, He uses you for His purpose—as He ordains. His power is greatest when revealed through humbleness of heart. Humble yourself before Him with nothing to prove and nothing but to live who He is in you. You will experience the delight of His freedom. Discover His Spirit—alive in you setting you free from all that you have thought yourself to be. Discover that your true purpose is His to direct and His to own. You are ready for the greatest abundance when you lay down all He has imparted—all you know He has given—and allow Him to wash your feet.

Stripped of all that stands in the way of His Hand upon you, you are unhindered by need or perception or anything at all. He who need not become less for you now has. You are His, and you realize that He has brought you to a place of victory that you never imagined. At His feet, you learn what it means to be crowned with victory because He was willing to humble himself for you. You know love full of glory that no word can describe because He gave all for you.

© 2017 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com

Form Me, Fire Me, Fill Me (page 143)

Priceless

Rejoice always. Pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

—1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 (NIV)

It takes time for a priceless pearl to form or for me to discover the inner beauty that comes from the trials of life. A pearl’s perfection comes from the constant irritation of sand within an oyster. Life is filled with constant irritation. Those irritations can spur me on to spiritual maturity, or they can destroy what God wishes to produce. Whether good or bad, my life is a result of my attitude.

It is God’s will that I have a good attitude in all circumstances. I will pray. I will praise Him no matter what happens. Trusting God with a no-matter-what-happens attitude can lift me above life’s many train wrecks when I surrender to His lesson and not to the circumstance.

To have this kind of trust, I persevere to grow spiritually. I yearn to have a sacrificial attitude that manifests itself in obedience. Strength, joy, peace, and a new positive attitude come from surrendering to God’s transforming power. Surrender is not an option; it is a necessity. It certainly does no good to rage against my circumstances. When God’s incredible mercy is my reason for living, then giving myself is something that comes through the renewing of my mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. I don’t fight against His lesson. I obediently seek what He wants to teach me. I sacrifice any fight against circumstances that are beyond my control. By gracefully accepting the pruning of the Vinedresser’s hand upon my life, I accept His molding. Learning God’s lesson becomes my passion

The price He paid deserves my surrender. My will yields to His. I just let go of my desires, my agenda, and my control in every circumstance, and I allow God to lead me. In allowing God to be in charge, I have spiritually determined that letting go is worth everything for what I receive in return. In the moment of surrender of all that I struggle to control, I discover the gift of His peace. God gives me the freedom to love Him or not love Him. What an amazing gift of love!:   

I yield my last claim to any right. I seek that priceless pearl. I will sell all of myself to Him in order to possess it. When I surrender all the shallowness of who I have been for the fulfillment of who He is, I discover that, in surrender of His life for mine, I have become His pearl of greatest price. Such love is beyond my mind’s ability to understand. I don’t need to understand. I just let it go, and I accept the miracle of His priceless worth.