It's All About Them by Robert Ricciardelli

If you want to connect with others, you must get over yourself. We must willingly shift from "What's in it for me" to "It's all about them," if we really want to serve others. The focus should be to hear their hearts, tap into their needs, while listening to God for a word fitly spoken, or a loving gesture done for them in His name. God's love can move through us to heal, restore, and bring needed life to others.

Giving and Receiving Life while Hurt by Robert Ricciardelli

When we have been deeply hurt by another, it is nearly impossible not to have spontaneous hostile thoughts. We find ourselves consumed about what we might say or how we might pay back the person who has hurt us. To bless rather than curse takes great faith and a willingness to go beyond our feelings and choose a life-giving response. In God's Wisdom as we choose to bless we give life and also receive life ourselves.

Choosing Life Discipline by Robert Ricciardelli

Death instead of life, curse instead of blessing can fill our minds. Anger, resentment, greed, lust, and hatred can linger and remain unchallenged. God asks us to choose life and blessing. This choice requires discipline and attentiveness to the darkness within us, and a great commitment to allow life to dominate our thoughts and feelings. We cannot do this alone and need the Lord and encouraging loved ones.

Surrender to God's Plans by Robert Ricciardelli

We cannot please God by what we do for Him in our own human effort, we please Him by surrendering and letting Him work in us and through our lives. A great stumbling block appears when we try to work things out independently of God and then ask God to assist us in our own plans. That must not be, as He has the best plans for us and we must surrender to Him to work His plans. He will then work gloriously with us.

God Chooses Life For You by Robert Ricciardelli

God presents us with these choices, "life or death", "blessing or cursing." God's will for us is to "Choose "life and blessing," and that choice is ever before us. We choose in every dimension of life, in our thoughts, our words, our attitudes and in our actions. This choice for life begins in our hearts. What we nurture in our hearts will eventually be uncovered. Choose life and reveal a life for God's glory.

Departed Loved Ones Showing the Way by Robert Ricciardelli

Sometimes loved ones become more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life. They can become daily inspiration for us as we remember what we gleaned from them and received in their love for us. The Lord uses Saints through His Word to instruct us through their faithful historic journeys, and we now have living epistles that walked with us and still live on in our hearts showing the ways of God.

Preparing to Die and Live Well by Robert Ricciardelli

Our own Death can happen suddenly, and we can be prepared by taking care of unfinished relational business. Have I forgiven those who have hurt me and asked forgiveness from those I have hurt? When we are at peace with all people, our death may cause great grief, but we will have removed anger, guilt, and unforgiveness. When we are ready to die, we also are ready for living life to its fullest.

Love is a Risk Worth Taking by Robert Ricciardelli

When we make a decision to love, we open ourselves to suffering, because those we love most can bring us great joy as well as great pain. When a loved one leaves we can experience the worst pain. If we try to avoid suffering that comes from loss, we will never experience the joy of real love. Love is stronger than fear, and life is stronger than death. We must trust, hope, and believe in love as a risk worth taking.

Forever a Part of Us by Robert Ricciardelli

When we lose a loved one, there is a void that impacts us emotionally for a long time. People we love become part of us. Our thoughts, feelings and actions have all been influenced by them. They have intimately become a part of us and when they die a part of us dies too. It takes time to say goodbye, even though they have gone on to a peaceful eternity. As we remember them, they continue to inspire our journey ahead.

Passages of Time by Robert Ricciardelli

Our final passage from this world is preceded by the beginning and end of many seasons. We are birthed out of one season and into the next. There are many chapters from womb to eternity and sometimes it's like death when a season ends. God has prepared you through it for a new beginning. In this time of transition, pray, believe, and watch for what God has in store for you. A new season approaches, are you ready?

Abide in His Promises by Robert Ricciardelli

Dying in this dimension of life is inevitable. We have been promised much gain in eternity, and yet we remained focused on current dimension living. Jesus takes the sting of death away and leads us to the place where our hearts deepest desires are satisfied both here and forever. The Living Word removes the fear of life and death. Abide in Him with no worries for tomorrow and the joy that each new day brings.

No One Can Change You by Robert Ricciardelli

No one can change you and you can’t really change anyone else. Acknowledge your need for change and believe in the God who empowers you for change. Negative behavior does not promote life but listening to God's still small voice can direct you towards a refreshed life for you. Issues do not just go away unintentionally. Look at what you must change and walk with God towards His new life for you.

Our Dependence and Significance in God by Robert Ricciardelli

When we enter alone into the presence God, we discover how dependent we are. When we are not busy with life and needed by others we can sometimes feel anxious and insignificant. So we become busy again to feel valued by self and others. Our significance is not in how people respond to us or how much we can do. Only God's love for us in who we are can bring significance beyond what we do, or what others may think.

Eternally Walking in God's Agape Road by Robert Ricciardelli

The "Agape Road" is often the road less traveled when it should be the road most traveled for God's people. We have been given so much love from God and He has given us the keys to Kingdom life. We have been given much and therefore much is required of us. The good news is that He is with us, and empowers us to do all that He has required for us to do. His love fuels our desire to walk with Him on His narrow road.

Fusion Into God's Life by Robert Ricciardelli

Church is the people of God, called out from self and into fusion with God Almighty in bringing His Kingdom glory to earth. We are called from slavery to freedom, despair to hope, darkness to light, manifesting to the world as His children and empowered by His Majestic Spirit. We must envision people of all ages, races, and societies supporting one another while establishing His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Hiddenness Keeps Our Focus on God of by Robert Ricciardelli

Hiddenness is important because it keeps our focus on God. In hiddenness we do not seek to be admired by man, but seek to please the Father, and go to Him in joy or sorrow knowing that He gives us what we need most. In society there is an inclination to avoid hiddenness while seeking to become visible and popular. We can lose touch with God in our dependence on people, and our true identity can only be found in Him.

Hidden in the God of Every Moment by Robert Ricciardelli

Hiddenness is essential in our life with God. Solitude, prayer, loving others, ordinary tasks, working, and living in unspectacular ways is the life that Jesus mostly lived and asks of us to live also. It is often in hiddenness that we grow in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man, while finding true intimacy with God and His love for others. We must take time to be still and know He is the God of every moment.

Fruit That Remains by Robert Ricciardelli

We live in a generation that wants to see the results of our work. The way of the Kingdom does not always bring forth immediate fruit, but will produce fruit that remains. We must trust that our lives will be fruitful by seeking first the Kingdom and God's nature. The fruit of our lives may be visible only to those who live after us. What is important is how well we love. God makes love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not.

You Are a Winner by Robert Ricciardelli

It seems easy to want to give up and quit in the struggle of life. God desires you to fight the good fight of faith and finish the race well. He has has empowered you to be an overcomer, and have victory in this world and for all eternity. Breaking through all challenges with God when everyone else might expect or understand it if you fell apart is a sign of strength, and a testimony to the power of God in you.

See God Potential In Others by Robert Ricciardelli

We must regard people less in light of what they do, and more in the light of who they are. We must also look at them for what they may become rather than where they currently are in their journey. Look at them the way God looks at them, with tremendous potential in Him to manifest themselves one day as sons and daughters of God. God is omnipotent and we can believe for His potential to radically change their lives.

Thoughts Determine Much by Robert Ricciardelli

Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts matter in how you communicate and relate. Your thoughts also impact your behavior and response to the world around you. Your response to this life determines your success in becoming a change agent for good, and a change agent for God. A disciplined and Spirit directed life fulfill God's plan and destiny that He established for you before the foundation of the earth.

Release, Refresh, and Renew in God by Robert Ricciardelli

Love those that love you and tap into God's love for those who don't, and for those who have caused you pain. The Lord will not waste one moment or experience in your life, if you will give them to Him. He is faithful, and He will work all things for good while making you stronger because of what you have gone through with Him. Release, refresh, and renew daily in the goodness of your God.

Shift Your Perception to God's Reality by Robert Ricciardelli

Perception is an observation and interpretation based chiefly on experience and memory. Your reality can become your perception of what is happening all around you. We are called to have faith in things yet unseen, and to believe God to work through all conditions in life. If you challenge yourself to shift your perception of your circumstances, you can activate your faith and align yourself to God's reality.

God's Glory Revealed through Love by Robert Ricciardelli

We can be preoccupied with wondering how we can be a great witness for God. Jesus was so full of God's love, so connected with God's will, so burning with zeal for God's Kingdom, that the glory of God could not be concealed from His life. God's love emanated from Him in power so that all who were touched by Him became healed and made whole. Our main goal should be to be as alive with the love of God as Jesus was.

Living and Loving Epistle's for God by Robert Ricciardelli

Jesus was Father's love incarnate, and we are the living epistles in his Name of God's amazing grace, and visible signs to the world of His unconditional love. The world will not see this by what we say, but by how we live. When others can truly say of us: "Look at how they love one another," they will catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God, and will desire to experience the supernatural love of God for themselves.

Not Bearing False Witness by Robert Ricciardelli

Good news becomes bad news when done outside of love. Anyone who proclaims forgiveness and the healing love of Christ with a bitter heart is a false witness. We are called to be His witness, always with our lives, and sometimes with our words. God's ambassadors must be willing to give without getting anything in return. The more we embrace God's unconditional love for us, the more able we are to love unconditionally.

You Must Do Your Part by Robert Ricciardelli

We must participate with God if we want a changed existence. He empowers us to do good aligned with His will. He does not love us for what we do, but we must engage in what the Father is doing. He will rescue you, but you must do your part in His plans for your freedom. He will direct you in using all that He has given you in time, talent, and resources. Sometimes we wait on God, but most times, He is waiting on us.

Face Your Pain, Face Your God by Robert Ricciardelli

Do not hide from the matters of your heart. God knows our hearts better than we do, and there is no hiding from Him. When we uncover ourselves before Him, He reveals the keys to unlock weary souls and bruised hearts. He heals, restores, and re-purposes lives for His glory. Face your pain, face your God, and He will do what your hiding will never do, and bring you fresh perspectives and resurrected hope for today.

Lord of the Peaks and Valleys by Robert Ricciardelli

Are you living life on the peak or in the valley, or somewhere in between? Life is full of peaks and valleys, and the Lord uses them both for His good. Poor choices on the peak may lead to the valley, and the good choices in the valley allows for God to empower your ascent upwards. The more good choices you make, the less valleys you see, and by looking to God, the view is always the same from peak or valley.

The Truth of God's Love by Robert Ricciardelli

Human or eros love has little room for the truth, for truth can never come between it or the object of its desire. There is fusion and harmony in both the agape love and the truth of God. There is no gap in God's love and truth because it is fulfilled completely in Him for all time. Therefore we must live in His truth filled love within, as this brings forth strength and honor to us, and all glory to the One who gave Himself for us.

Abiding Peace in Our Hearts by Robert Ricciardelli

Whatever we do in word or deed we must do so with the peace of God abiding in our hearts. There is a great temptation to let people take our peace away. This happens whenever we become angry, bitter, or vengeful when others do not respond favorably to the kindness we bring them. Our God gives us peace in the midst of the storm, and calls us to love even our enemies. Do not let others rob the peace of God within you.