Someone I loved. Someone I miss would often said: It’s a bonus day.

A bonus post today.

As you may have read You Version is a Godsend for me. Rarely does a day go by that I do not open my phone app to read a devotion or two and some TEXT.

I read this today and it speaks so well to me that I really want to share it and here seems like the likely place. :)

It’s from Destined to Win. Just a five-day commitment of reading for a lifetime of better living.

Unleashing Heaven When you have Jesus living in you, you have everything you need to rise above the trials of life and become the person you were created to be in God. Refuse to be reduced by your fears, restricted by your past, or derailed by your critics or your worst day. Instead, live as a believer who rises to the high call of God in Christ Jesus and thus becomes fully actualized in your personhood. Champions are forged in the crucible of life and are molded by the Potter’s hands, which often look familiar, human, and anything but divine. There are times when the hands of the Potter seem to be forcefully working the clay of your life, painfully shaping you into a different vessel for greater glory. Yet at the end of the day, when the wheel has ceased and the noise has stopped, you find peace in the depths of your soul, knowing you yielded your heart to the Master. Jesus’ twelve disciples weren’t exactly Fortune 500 CEOs, but something powerful happened to them as they hung out with Jesus. They spent three-and-a-half years on the Potter’s wheel and were molded into champions. Even the guy who denied Jesus three times was a force to be reckoned with who became a famous world-changer, the head of the first-century church. Many people make excuses as to why they can’t be champions, winners, or world-changers. They think they’re not smart enough, spiritual enough, strong enough, or liked enough to be great. But nothing could be further from the truth. God loves to form winners out of chumps, wimps, and weaklings. Paul said it best: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). Never underestimate God’s ability to take the broken pieces of your life and remold you into something beautiful. Remember that no matter where you are in life, or how you might be feeling right now, Jesus believes in you. He is bigger than your worst mistake, better than your worst day, and more powerful than your worst circumstances. Put your trust in Him; you will never regret it. After all, you are destined to win!

The first sentence! Bam! Truth alive!  A key to authenticity!

When you have Jesus living in you, you have everything you need to rise above the trials of life and become the person you were created to be in God.

And this:

but something powerful happened to them as they hung out with Jesus

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 The Message (MSG) ^{26-31 . . .} Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.” source

Anything jump from the page for you? 

Fellow bloggers have graciously shared their Word(s) for 2017. I commented to a long time blogger friend that I had not settled into 2017 quietly enough to get a word. She assured me it would come. She was right. 

You Version. Y’all familiar? It’s a God-send to me. Especially this one: Destined to Win. This line in particular: “Authenticity means letting go of who others want you to be, so you can be who you really are.”

Authenticity.  

Authentic. 

That’s the me to be in 2017.

Not just with my people, those with whom it’s acceptable and comfortable to be me but others. Not the flesh me but the God-given Spirit me.  The positive, believing-GOD this is going to work out me. The me that say yes I can see that is difficult but GOD promises this  .  . . if we will do this . . . 

You get the idea? Me too. Scary it is I tell you!

Authentic! To be found authentically belonging, believing, trusting, loving, and sharing JESUS with all my world, including myself! Authentic, honest with myself about the me I am being on any given and every day of 2017.   A young woman named Faith calls it being RAD. 

She said this:

Slowly but surely I had to learn how to…

Reveal my sins.

  Accept his Grace

             Do not pick it back up.

That’s pretty… RAD… right?

Click HERE for more of Faith at A Messy Sanctuary.

Galatians 6:14-16 (TLV) 14 But may I never boast—except in the cross of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. Through Him the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything—but only a new creation. 16 Now as many as live by this rule—shalom and mercy on them and on the Israel of God.  source 

2 John 3  (NKJV) 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.   source