Rise Above Your Past and Soar into Your Future

By Lu Ann Topovski M.Div MBA

Lu Ann Topovski obtained her Master in divinity degree through Ashland Theological Seminary in 2007. She then obtained her MBA in 2010. She has owned two counseling centers and has published three books: "Rising Above - Dealing With Our Past, Making Way For Our Future", "Rising Above Modern Day Relationships", and "Your Moment Is Now".
Lu Ann currently is a high Level Life Coach, teaches 12-week on-line classes, has her own YouTube/Rumble Channel, and is the TV host for The Kingdom View.

Lu Ann believes that as we do what God has directed us to do, we rise above our old ways and sorrowful patterns. As we allow God to work through us and guide us through trials and temptations, we rise above the natural tendencies of projection, and into the kingdom of God kind of thinking, which breaks negative patterns and strongholds. This in turn increases our emotional intelligence, strengthens our mental stability, and gives us spiritual maturity. As we grow in our relationship with the Spirit of God, that Christ in us, we desire to stay in step with the Spirit, and be who we have been created to be, and do what we are being guided to do by Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669802341

Book preview

COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY LU ANN TOPOVSKI, M.DIV, MBA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/29/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1 Being On Top Of Our Game

Chapter 2 Pride Comes Before We Fall

Chapter 3 Knowledge and the Marriage Union

Chapter 4 Courage to Change

Chapter 5 Doing Things God’s Way

Chapter 6 Taking Responsibility

Chapter 7 Arise - 10 Keys To The Kingdom Lifestyle

Chapter 8 The Lords Battle - Our Victory

Chapter 9 Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 10 Love - The Bond Of Perfection

Scriptures to Meditate

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my children Taylor, Spencer, and Sydney. I am grateful to God for allowing me the opportunity of motherhood, and to raise all of you as my own. Life is not always easy, but it is worth the journey with all three of you.

This book is also dedicated to the children of God who seriously desire to live out the righteousness of God, enjoying the benefits of living in the kingdom of God, here on earth. It is dedicated to those who desire to see God’s holiness and kingdom work through them and around them during their lifetime here on earth.

I believe we were made to love ourselves and others but not at the expense of losing ourselves, our passion, or our purpose. When we have loved and lost, it takes courage to love again. This book is dedicated to those who have loved and lost. May you find the strength, courage, and desire to love again.

Since God is love, and we are created in his image, we can trust, we can love. It is easy to love children, family, and friends. It is more of a risk to give our heart to someone who does not fit into one of those categories. At the same time, there is freedom and joy in love. It is worth the risk because we receive unspeakable joy when love is felt by both parties.

Thank you to my daughter, Taylor Mason, who gave me insights and helped me consider writing methods to help make this book stronger. Thank you to my son, Spencer Mason who has fought through many battles and miraculously made it through all of them. His strength and perseverance is an inspiration to me and others to keep moving forward. I want to give a special thanks to my daughter, Sydney Mason who helped edit this 2nd Edition with grace and precision.

Thanks to Antonio Otero who has supported me spiritually for years. Your editorial skills in the original version helped to make this book a success. You are an amazing editor and gifted in knowing how to operate the gifts of the Spirit. Thank you to one of my best friends on this earth, Lea Wiens, who experienced miracles in her life as well as supported me through my years of trials and encouraged me while writing this book. Thanks to another best friend, Gail Simar, who encouraged me to write more Scripture and give more specifics in chapter two. Thank you, Mika Mondragon, for fresh eyes, friendship, and insights. Thank you, Andrea Dideon, for allowing God to use you in my time of need and being there for me in my darkest hours. Thanks to my parents, Eloise K. Bell, and George Topovski, who believed in me and helped me financially and prayerfully with this book and loved me throughout my years of pain and trials. To all of you, I am eternally grateful!

INTRODUCTION

I originally started writing this book for those who are Christian but have strayed from behaving like believers in Christ — otherwise known as the lost sheep, or prodigals. As I continued writing, I noticed the Holy Spirit moving within my heart to write not only to believers who had strayed from the truth, but also to younger, less mature, Christians. Then, the Holy Spirit moved within me to write to those who have been contemplating accepting Jesus as their Savior and allowing him to be their Lord.

In short, this book is written to those who are searching for answers to questions about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, righteousness, healing, and peace from this world. I am not saying I have all the answers. I don’t. However, I am saying that God has blessed me through my own emotional pain with the ability to learn from it and help others.

It was during my time in seminary that I continued my emotional healing. After graduation, I continued my education and received my MBA. With the job crisis in America during that time, I was typically one out of three hundred applicants for one job! My odds were not great, and I was pushing fifty years old. I don’t care what anyone tells you, no one wants someone with that much experience, unless they are helping to bring funding into the company.

However, if we believe God will provide for us, and is our source, our Jehovah-Jireh (Genesis 22), we must take responsibility of our faith and look within to see what our block might be. I did. And when I did I and saw that I, too, was pushing against the goads, like Saul. In other words, I was only hurting myself in not doing what I knew God was guiding me to do for him, which was finishing this book and making changes within my personal life.

I am here to teach what I have learned. My hope and prayers are for everyone to come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and allow Jesus to be Lord in their lives. Is it easy? Not always. It takes faith, which is often harder than having no faith at all. Faith takes courage, and it is our faith that catapults us into living in the kingdom of God, here on this earth. This presence of God is irrefutable. And our faith and courage are worth every step as we get to live out our purpose with passion.

By accepting Jesus as our personal Savior, we are given eternal life with our Heavenly Father (John 3:16) and guidance from the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:7). By allowing the Holy Spirit to guide our thoughts, our words and actions are influenced by him; and, thereby, we are doing what is righteous and making Jesus our Lord. This is living in the kingdom of God here on earth. This is not only peace for our soul. Our hearkening unto the Lord’s voice and obedience to his guidance opens the doors to abundance in every aspect of our lives.

My prayers are for us as a people to choose righteousness in our lives. My hope is that we seek out what it means to be a believer by reading and studying the scriptures for ourselves, and by staying prayerful and in fellowship with our Creator who desires us to call him, Abba Father like Jesus did, or in our modern-day language, Daddy.

I believe we should find unity within our Christian family, and ultimately within humanity. This makes us all stronger. However, as we all can attest, this is not always easy. But, as we stay focused on our own personal journey and not get distracted by others, it is easier to stay in alignment with the Lord and with our community. If we are feeling dis-ease between a brother or sister in Christ, we might want to ask ourselves, Is everything right with my soul? If our soul is not at peace, we can pray for understanding in our situation. As we make things right to the best of our ability, we can move on in our personal journey. Our mutual enemy wants us to fight and have sibling rivalry. We should not give him the satisfaction.

We want to give God, our Heavenly Father, the glory for everything we do. That includes allowing him to help us through our disagreements. When my kids were young, one of the things I would ask them to do if they were arguing was to tell the other sibling three things they liked about them. After sharing three things each, it often led to laughter and camaraderie. This is what our heavenly father wants from us, camaraderie. As we incorporate each other’s work, we are acknowledging others’ gifts and talents, giving emphasis to the importance of unity, but more importantly, how we are stronger together.

Because music has always been a part of my life-long journey and enjoyment, I have incorporated a playlist at the end of each chapter. These playlists can be heard on the e-book version by simply clicking on the link. I have also included the songs in this book, so anyone can search them on the internet. All songs included in this book are contemporary Christian songs and most have been heard on the radio. I have also mentioned other Christian authors and their writings throughout this book.

I pray the relevance of each song or recommended book will inspire each reader. May the God of peace guide your thoughts and bless you as you read this book, and may the Holy Spirit move within your life and heart so powerfully that you will never be the same.

Lu Ann Topovski, M.Div, MBA

PLAYLIST

TobyMac – Made to Love – Speak Life - Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qelx04Iu_3w

CHAPTER 1

BEING ON TOP OF OUR GAME

The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

DEUTERONOMY 28:13-14 NIV

We as a human race unknowingly cooperate with our enemy and without question become oblivious to the power this enemy holds over us. We may be believers in God, but we have problems. We are called to be at the head and not the tail, yet many of us are at the tail instead of the head. Why?

We get distracted. We follow our own desires. Sometimes they conflict with what God wants for us and if we don’t ask him, we can lose track of our path, knowingly or sometimes unknowingly.

We all have an ongoing need and desire to feel loved, to love, and to better our lives. We are made in the image of God, and God is love. That is partly why we learn about relationships and get involved within the community around us. While in community, we go to school, church, counseling, or talk with friends about our problems and opportunities. Everyone desires to have a successful, less stressful, more manageable, and more meaningful life with love. It is our foundation with which we can be in unity together.

Statistics show that those of us who choose to deal honestly with our internal turmoil live longer with sincere hope, along with a more peaceful and meaningful lifestyle. Studies also show we generally have healthier bodies because we are less stressed. The question to ask ourselves then is: Is everything right with my soul?

Consequently, we move forward in our lives and desire to be the best we can be for ourselves, and our families. The question becomes: Is God involved? If he is, we tend to have more peace in our soul and change our lifestyle if it interrupts this utopia.

As we examine our hearts, we see opportunities to make changes necessary for our emotional, mental, or spiritual healing. We can do this before we are reminded by our bodies, or God, that something is not right in our life, and therefore, our soul. This is our mind-body-spiritual connection.

For instance, if we have a headache, it is typically due to stress in our life, barring any physical accident from our past. The same is true about exhaustion. We give and give to others or work long and hard on a project and at some point, our bodies say, Enough! before we collapse. We need to rest. Our bodies cannot take it over an extenuated period. Stress ages us and it is unhealthy. So, it’s important to pay attention to our physical body as we eat well, drink water, exercise, and rest.

Resting

In the Old Testament, one of the Ten Commandments is to work six days and to rest and worship on the seventh — or the Sabbath. Clearly, God knows better than we as to what we need to do to live a healthy, happy lifestyle. Resting and worshiping are two observations we can all benefit from on the Sabbath, or any day of the week.

Traditional religions teach us that the Sabbath is either on a Saturday or a Sunday. It is honestly not worth squabbling over which day we rest; it only matters that we take time to rest and worship, especially now that we are in a new administration, spiritually speaking.

This might be sacrilege for some, but if we think about it, many pastors, rabbis, and priests take Monday or another day off during the week because they preach on Saturday or Sunday. This is not about being legalistic, it’s about doing the right thing as we are led by the Holy Spirit. Remember, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath day