Free Beauty for ashes: receiving emotional healing by Joyce Meyer Page B

live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me."
    We need to learn to be satisfied by being in God's will. The more we focus on who we are in Christ, the less it matters who we were in the past, or even what has happened to us. Paul said, "I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lordandof progressively becoming more deeplyandintimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]" (Philippians 3:8).
    He added, "[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out
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    from among the dead [even while in the body]" (Philippians 3:10-11).There are deep places to discover in God, and there are deep places in us that only God can fill. We need to understand the power of God's resurrection, power that can lift us out from among the dead even while we live in the body. Just as the eagle rests its wings on the currents of the air to lift itself above the clouds, Christ will lift us above the storms of our lives.
    We may have a goal to move toward perfection, but we will never arrive at that state until Jesus comes again. We are to accept ourselves, love ourselves, and enjoy the journey because we know God is working on our future all of the time.
    Press On to What Lies Ahead
    Paul went on to write:
    Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp)andmake my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of meandmade me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have capturedandmade it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]-.forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,Ipress ontoward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward" (Philippians 3:12-14, emphasis mine).
    If you have been miserable because of the things thathavehappened in your past, I encourage you to do as I did and your focus in a new direction. Determine to be what God
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    wants you to be, to have what God wants you to have, and to receive what Jesus died to give you.When you are ready for change, say, "I am not going to live in bondage anymore. I am not going to live in a box, comparing myself to others, and trying to be what they say I should be. I cannot do anything about what I have done in the past, but I can do something about my future. I am going to enjoy my life and have what Jesus died for me to have. I am going to let go of the past, and go on pursuing God from this day forth."
    It takes maturity to let go of the past, but a mature Christian receives the fullness of God's blessings. You can forget old failures, old disappointments, and old relationships that did not work out. Instead, you can discover the new mercies that God is ready to give you every day because of the covenant He made with you when you put your trust in His Son Jesus Christ to save you.
    King David searched for relatives of his predecessor King Saul because he wanted to bless them, simply because he had a covenant relationship with Saul's son Jonathan. In 2 Samuel 9 is the story of how David found Jonathan's crippled son, Mephibosheth, and brought him into the royal palace where he could take