Over the past several days, the Lord has been drawing my attention to my posture. Whether it’s through a Facebook post saying, ‘Grace in a posture’, this statement from our YouVersion Reading plan, ‘Progressively over a number of decades, they’d refused a posture of surrender toward His divine care and guidance’, or even the hope of my husband and kids knowing that I enjoy being with them, I’ve been reflecting on my posture.

And while, yes, my physical posture has slacked a bit over the past few weeks, I know it’s my spiritual posture that provides the real strength and beauty. I was getting pretty confident in my own spiritual posture, and felt like I was on firm ground, when a scary scenario happened, and my anxiety got turned up several notches. Suddenly I was choosing to be on shaky ground, full of fears and what-ifs. Thankfully I was gently reminded to have a posture of faith. Replace the lies with truth. Know Who is in control and trust the He is good.

We have to chose to stand firm on holy ground. With the belt of Truth wrapped around our waists. And roll our shoulders back in confidence of our King.

Here are some questions to personally consider:

• What’s my current posture?
• How can I align my posture to Him?
• Do I daily have a posture of surrender?
• Is my posture based on my strength or His?
• Or am I letting my posture slack a little for comfort?
• Would I describe my posture as humble or prideful?
• Am I abiding in Him, connected to the Vine? Producing fruit?
• What about the Armor of God? Are all the pieces on and in place?
• What’s my posture towards my husband?
• What’s my posture towards the kids?
• What’s my posture towards my tasks?

Let’s meditate on these passages of Scripture and pay attention of our posture.

Abraham didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.

Romans 4:20-25 MSG

Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a musty cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!

Matthew 6:22-23 MSG

Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts.

Proverbs 4:23 MSG

For a session on physical posture AND spiritual posture, join me for this 45 minute workout!

Lord, give us a posture of joy, truth, grace, peace, strength, surrender, freedom, fun, and worship!

I was having a conversation with my kids about humility and pride. So when reflecting on Good Friday, we discussed what group actually crucified Christ? 

It still hurts my heart to acknowledge it was the religious – the arrogant, know-it-alls – who actually accomplished the act.

If what I know about God makes me prideful about what I know about God, then I don’t know God!

Alisa Keeton

Let that quote settle in . . . So how do we know God? 

Here are two thoughts from our YouVersion plan, Understanding Holy Courage, Embracing Godly Fear:

‘Scripture keeps reminding us to begin with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10). This is what wisdom and knowledge and confidence look like, lifting our eyes to fear a holy and all-powerful God.’

‘Not only is fear of the Lord the beginning of both wisdom and knowledge, God’s Word tells us that this is where we find the strong confidence and security the world longs for. This fear and reverence—the only proper response to an all-powerful God—is actually a place of refuge and security for us and our children. This is the confidence we are desperate for when the world feels shaky, when the future feels unsteady and we worry long about the generation following behind us.’

The irony is the older I get and the more my fear and knowledge and love expand, I realize the less I truly know. I realize how much I can’t even grasp or fully understand. The more questions I have, and even doubts about what I used to pridefully believe, I experience the value of surrendering my knowledge and allowing His Spirit to work in me to reveal His truth.

‘That is our choice, to surrender our full heart to Him. To hold nothing back in pride, but in humility know Him as greater. And in the knowing we will always find what is greater, what is better; because we find the One who loves to make Himself known to His people.’ – Understanding Holy Courage, Embracing Godly Fear.

So here, questions and doubts welcome. The Lord welcomes doubts and questions and ‘but I don’t understand . . . ‘ statements.  He’s a ‘come as you are’ God with open arms and a listening ear. Plus He’s full of love and truth.

Humility and doubts are welcome and honestly necessary for growth and faith. 

Alissa Keeton in The Wellness Revelation describes a spectrum with pride on one side and disbelief on the other. Health, wholehearted, and holiness are best found somewhere in the middle. 

And as a friendly reminder, we can always approach the throne of grace with confidence! Go through this scripture flow with us and focus on Hebrews 4:16.

God is love.  And His love conquers all.  Even death. 

Just as God is love before creation, God is love today. And will be love forever.  God the Father has and will continue to author your love story!  God the Son has and will continue to accomplish your love story! God the Spirit has and will continue to apply this love story in you and through you!

Thanks to His death on the cross, we’re invited into His royal and eternal family! And to live in the love and freedom that comes from our King!

We’re invited to join this love through His action – life, death, & resurrection.  This love in action that is just as active today! We’re invited to join as daughters of the Father and brides of the Son through the help of the Spirit, burning bright within us, better together!

As we celebrate Easter, let’s savor and share His amazing love story for us ALL!

So Holy Barre is here to encourage and empower others to not only pursue health, wholeness, and holiness in our God. But we’re also here to share the beauty of God’s love and build community, knowing we’re better together burning bright! Join us as we move forward on this journey!

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

i john 4:7-21

Here’s a 25-minute full-body workout as we celebrate our Risen Savior and His love story for us!

We are created for love, beauty, comfort, pleasure, security, healing . . . all the natural desires of our heart!

Yet these won’t be truly found inside stuffed eggs or baskets or weight loss or anti-aging or in other people or money or fitness or food or knowledge or control . . .

While all of these can be valuable, they don’t hold eternal value. So how do we view them? Are they idols we obsessively pursue or resources we lovingly steward? Do we worship the Creator or His creation?

Easter serves to powerfully remind us the value is in Christ alone! And the true love, beauty, comfort, pleasure, security, healing we find through Him.

But seek first His kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 6:33

So let’s seek Him. Abide in Him. Remain in Him! 

Yes, that’s not easy. We’re still broken and sinful and people with pain, temptation and hurt. But our Christ Jesus can create a crown of beauty from ashes! And He is what we truly need!

He is the Word, Bread of Life, Living Water, King, Groom, Savior, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Immanuel . . .

Love these lyrics from Ain’t No Grave by Bethel Music and Molly Skaggs . . .

Oh, there was a battle

A war between death and life

And there on a tree

The Lamb of God was crucified

And He went on down to hell

He took back every key

He rose up as a lion and He set all captives free

There ain’t no grave

Could hold His body down

The love of God turns our culture’s definition of love upside down. It’s not your typical self-focused, action-dependent, convenient, performance-based kind of love. It’s a sacrificial love, a first-is-last and last-is-first love, a serving love, a pursuing love, an unconditional love. It’s love that burns bright for you, yet independent of you and your actions.

But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly! And there is still much more to say of his unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in my sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God.

Romans 5:8-9 TPT

While the Hallmark channel can create a good love story, it’s not reality. Yet these cinema love stories actually draw attention to our need for God and His love story. Because it’s our broken hearts, our brokenness, our sinful nature that should be upside on a cross instead of His love. A sacrificial love that refines and purifies. An amazing and abundant love that hung on a cross for each of us, for you, so His pursuit of your heart could be even bolder and burn brighter.

Let’s just focus on the cross while we stretch and breath together.

This is the second part of our series leading up to Easter. We’re discovering, savoring, and celebrating God’s incredible love story for us! If you haven’t read Part 1, just check out the previous post! And each part of this series includes a short and sweet workout. Here’s a 15-min lower body video to get you moving and burning bright!

While GOD IS LOVE and each person of the Trinity is love, each has a unique role in His love story. (check out God’s Love Story – Part 1 for more)

• God the Father authors the love story.
• God the Son accomplishes the love story.
• God the Spirit applies the love story.

(These helpful statements are taken from Tara Leigh Coble’s Trinity study.)

We were created by and for this ultimate love!

• We were created to be called lovely by God the Father as children of God.
• We were created for a love story as the bride of Christ.
• We were created for help and community in relationship with God the Spirit and with His believers.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God ; believe also in me.My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

John 14:1-4 NIV

So whether you just want to know you’re Daddy’s Girl or desire to be pursued like a beautiful bride or just need a personal friend and deep relationship, GOD IS LOVE! Just as a father should protect and provide security for His child, God the Father is authoring good and desiring a secure future for you. Just as centuries ago when the groom prepared a room for his bride in his father’s house, God the Son is preparing a room for you. (See John 14:1-4) And just as a dear friend knows how to help and what to say, God the Spirit is near and engaged and care for you.

Yet GOD IS EVEN BETTER than any earthly father, groom, or friend! Even better than what we can ask, think, or imagine! We’re talking about a love story that encompasses all we need or could ever want! Let’s celebrate and move and rest in this powerful truth!

So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power.

Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.

Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude  of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!

Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination!  He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.

Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. Amen!

ephesians 3:14-21 TPT

As we near Easter in just four weeks, I’d love to use this time to focus on His love and His love story! This is something the Lord has been graciously sharing with me over the past several weeks through various things like the series The Chosen, the Book of John and a study on the Trinity by Tara Leigh Cobble. So let’s jump in with the truth ‘God is love.’

God is love. And while He is loving, He truly is love. But what does that mean?  What love story does that describe?

Let’s start with Him. God is three in one – God the Father. God the Son. And God the Spirit. The Trinity. All three are God in unity. Yet all three love the other two with the purest of love.  God’s love for us is just an outpouring of this ultimate love.  Our love for God isn’t needed or required.  His love story is independent of our actions, and His act of love is ‘just because . . .  I love you’

What does that kind of love mean to you?  

I pray He shows you His love story for you over the next few weeks . . . in a unique and personal way.

Moreover, we have seen with our own eyes and can testify to the truth that Father God has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Those who give thanks  that Jesus is the Son of God live in God, and God lives in them. We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us.

I John 4:14-16 TPT

Here’s a 20-minute upper body workout to start you off strong! Each part in this series will target a specific area of your beautiful temple. 🙂

This is the last characteristic for a reason! Having self-control is way easier when the other eight traits are present! Self-control can simply be seen as walking in step with the Spirit.

Beth Moore states, ‘Self-control is the decision to remain within the boundaries of victory.’ Or as Proverbs states, a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. (Prov 25:28). Physical discipline and spiritual discipline are connected. While I don’t want you to focus on controlling and tracking and restraining the physical aspects of your life, there is value in applying self-control to all areas – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual!

But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!

Romans 13:11-14 MSG

I loved this statement from our YouVersion reading plan: ‘But the soil of God’s love in Christ is rich enough to produce all the self-control you need.’ Amen! The fruit of the Spirit is definitely not natural . . . BUT GOD! But His soil! But His Vine! But His Living Water! But His Light! But His Pruning! But His tender care! But His faithful promise of growth and abundance!

Stay connected, Friends! The fruit-filled freedom will follow!

Let’s start with talking about Jesus, a true gentle giant! Gentleness, as portrayed by Christ, is not weakness but actually controlled strength. His life and ministry exemplified spiritual gentleness – not getting easily frazzled or offended. It’s taking a deep breath and interacting with others and the Spirit with an open heart.

When researching this fruit of the Spirit, these words were found to help define gentleness: teachable, submissive to the Lord, humble, aware, and repentant. In addition, the opposite of living out gentleness is being easily offended.

Gentleness gives such a stark contrast to our culture today as those around us almost take pride in getting offended, pursuing self-help, believing their way is right, taking charge, and only surrounding themselves with like-minded people. May we stand out as gentle and loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, and faithful. And may our message be one of remaining in the Vine, always acknowledging our fruit and strength and power come from the Lord.

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

2 Timothy 2:24-26

As Beth Moore says, let’s leave condemnation to God and conviction to the Holy Spirit.

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

Isaiah 30:15

And as Lisa Bevere states, like the lioness, let’s be at ease with strength and at rest with power.

Our faithfulness is founded upon God’s faithfulness. As with all fruit of the Spirit, our being faithful is our response to His continually being faithful to us! But while ‘faith’ is a common word in our language, the idea of ‘faith’ is honestly a mystery. To have faith is basically being okay with not fully understanding or grasping all the ways God is faithful to us! So our response is to keep our eyes fixed on and remain in Him and pursue the mystery of faith in Jesus Christ!

When it comes to faithfulness, we must believe ‘in’ more than believe ‘that’. Our faith can’t be dependent upon outcomes but must be founded on His everlasting love and truth. Faithfulness is lived out little by little and seen through obedience in the moment. ‘For we live by faith, not by sight.’ 2 Cor 5:7

Faithfulness is resting in His certainty, being persuaded by His honesty, trusting in His reality, being won over by His veracity . . . being sure that He’s sure and believing He’s worth believing.’

Beth Moore, Living Beyond Yourself

Faithfulness spurs us forward with boldness, confidence, gratitude, hope, and power as we trust in our Father and His plans. In scripture, faithfulness and righteousness are often discussed together like in these two passages below.

Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. – Isaiah 11:5

Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. – Psalm 85:10

If faithfulness is believing what the Lord says, righteousness is doing what the Lord says. Or some even go so far as the say these two words are more synonymous than complimentary. Both are included in the Armor of God and serve protect and strengthen us. So we can say with confidence . . .

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:7-8

To keep the faith, we stay connected to the Vine. We keep our eyes on Him. His faithfulness reaches to the skies (Psalm 36:5) and continues through all generations (Psalm 100:5). Even when we are faithless, God is faithful! And through the Spirit, we produce His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness . . .

For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. . . . The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Galatians 5:5-6

Here’s our faith anthem – Firm Foundation by Maverick City Music! Stretch your body to this powerful song!