God is good—all the Time!

I believe the greatest lesson of faith is the acknowledgement that God is good—all the time, even when we can’t feel it with our emotions. Oswald Chambers wrote, “Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven trustworthy in our own minds.”  But there are days, which sometimes turn into weeks, which sometimes turn into entire seasons, where our heart wonders, God, are You really good? I pray that the promises of God in His word will help encourage your heart to know that God is good, all the time. Love you all.

“For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalm 100:5

Let me encourage you to trust the sovereignty of God. You might ask if God is in control of everything and bad things still happen, how can He be good? When life is hard, do you ever doubt that God is good? When your prayers seem to go unanswered, do you ever secretly think it’s because He’s mad at you or trying to punish you? So do you ever wonder, How could a good God let this happen?

Questions like these are the exact reason we’ve got to trust what the Bible says about who God is. Our feelings can trick us. Our limited perspective of what’s happening in our lives makes it hard to know what exactly is good for us and what isn’t. That’s why when we’re tempted to doubt that God is good, we need to run to God’s promises.

In case there’s still that nagging place in your heart that’s saying, If God is really good, why hasn’t He fixed this? this passage is just for you. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans. 8:28). In other words, a good God makes sure that even the bad stuff gets worked out to our benefit. Be reminded that  “This too shall pass and be redeemed. The more you cling, the more you’ll see He really is good. We can know for sure that He has a plan to make sure even the bad stuff in our lives will be worked for our good. Will you cling to that truth today?

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FINDING STRENGTH IN THE LONELY PLACES!

Whatever is overwhelming you in your life right now has a purpose to bring you closer to God. The winds of trouble and the storms of your life must all submit to the will of God for you. Our battle will never be stronger than the refuge and strength of your God! The bible tells us, “Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning”. (Psalm 30:5)  That means that every painful struggle has a timing for it to end.  And it is only then that you will understand the power of  God whose love for you  never failed. Have a wonderfully blessed day. Love you all.

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life (Psalm 138:7)

All of the battles that you face as a believer are fought on holy ground because the power of God is with you. You are in the company of the army of heavenly forces who know well how to deal with the enemy. You are never left to fight alone. As David understood that God was giving him his victory, so must you know that you are a conqueror against all that comes against you. You must never let your situation cause you to be anxious. Worry is nothing but the whispers of lies from a defeated enemy! Satan wants you to make you feel alone and hopeless so that he can get a foothold into your mind. Don’t give him access.

The truth is all the force that you need to defeat your feelings of hopelessness. Your financial struggles, marriage problems, health issues, addictions or heartaches are all under the power of a Sovereign God who knows how to take you safely through them. Your weaknesses are not hidden from the eye of an omniscient God who offers you his strength when you have none of your own. He is never limited by the scope of your impossible situation. His power is not confined to boundaries and it supersedes the scientific laws of this world. Most importantly, your painful struggle was seen by God long before you were born and he prepared a way to take you to victory. He has not forgotten you now and he never will.

It is the lonely places that put you next to the heart of your God. For it is when you have nowhere else to turn that you realize that God’s power was all that you ever needed. Jesus paid the price so that those who believed would be made more than a conqueror in all the battles of this world.

Never surrender your joy no matter how bad the problems in your life seem. Though you may not understand it now, Christ is working it all out to fit into the perfect plan that he ordained for your life. The One who keeps all your tears in a bottle will not let you drown in despair. There is nothing you must face that will not be measured and timed by God’s own hand.

Having Hope when you’re Afraid!

“When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” John 6:19-20

In this passage we read where the disciples, fresh from Jesus feeding the five thousand, were toiled away in a terrific storm. They feared for their safety and were frightened by a ghostlike figure walking on the water toward them. They did not recognize their Master–the One who calms the seas. In a similar way, just after we encounter a problem, we can easily forget a prior act of God’s favor. Yet, faith in Christ’s work is meant to keep fear at bay. He who provides in our need can see us through uncertain times.

Sometimes our Savior tests our trust in Him. He allows us to struggle in our work. He leads us to labor hard for His sake, even as we make minimal progress. Our work is not an end in itself, but a means to grow our faith in Jesus and learn how to rest in His peaceful presence. Yes, those we work with need our support and our example of looking to the Lord during economic storms. If our jobs were easy, we might become proud and self sufficient. So in hard times, hope in God.

He is our solid rock that cannot be moved by temptation or manipulation. We rest in the cleft of the Rock of Ages–Almighty God. He shelters us in the storms of life. Hope in Him gets us through scary situations. Fear fades in the face of faith.

Do you find yourself in the middle of a crisis of faith? Has a health issue rocked your world? Has someone else’s decisions destroyed your peace? Whatever worries you have, Christ can cure. He walks toward you to calm your heart in crummy circumstances. Be hopeful in Him and fear will finally run its course. The same Holy Spirit that interceded on your behalf in past prayers, intercedes for you now. Be hopeful for your Creator can cease the storm. Rest in and with Him!

He will Place you on a Firm Foundation!

A FIRM foundation; that is what we need to stand in this life. A foundation built on the WORD, prayer and our HOPE in the future in which Christ has written in the Word. Our future is firm in HOPE. It is as sure as His promises; promises of heaven, eternal life with Him, forgiveness, and a FIRM foundation. Our future is as sure as His Word. Do you believe this? Do you believe His promises? Then make a firm stand!! He will NEVER let you down!

“…. he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. All power to him forever! Amen.” 1 Peter 5:10-11

It is easy to get tired. You know, just plain worn out. Life seems to come at us so hard. There is never enough time to get everything we need done. Is it a wonder that we feel like we live in a pressure cooker? Jesus invited all of us who are under a heavy burden to come to Him. He promised that He would give us rest. Peter heard Him say it!

And now Peter writes to us promising that this same Jesus will restore, support and strengthen us. Peter promises us that Jesus will place us on a firm foundation because all power belongs to Him. Today, let this same Jesus comfort you. Let Him come into your situation and give you support and strength. Lean on Him. Share with Him. Give Him all your burdens. Remember, “All power belongs to Him forever!”

Visualize yourself coming to Jesus all worn out, tired and weary. You are burdened and about ready to give up. And then you sense empathy coming from Jesus. He hears you. He senses your need. He looks at you with compassion and you begin to feel your burdens start to lift. Faith begins to fill your brain and hope follows. Soon joy begins to replace your mood and God places you on a firm foundation. You affirm, “God restores, supports and strengthens me.”

Have a wonderful day in His presence. Love you all in Christ.

Let go and Let God!

All of us like to feel that we are in control of our lives, but God wants to be the one in control. He does not want us to control Him. We need to just accept the circumstances and acknowledge that we are powerless to it and leave it with God to work out the details-believing that He has our best interests in mind anyway. He is better at it than anyone else! By giving a situation over to Him, we are placing it in the best hands possible and allow His will be done.

We must allow God to be in control of every area of our lives. God knows where you have come from and He knows where you are going. In order for God to be in control, we first must totally surrender ourselves to Him. For some, that might be difficult, but total surrender is a process that we must go through. If we fail to yield, God will allow us to get ourselves into certain situations that are designed to teach us a lesson, but in the end, after we have gone full circle, we will come to the place that we will agree that it is best to let God be in control.

Letting go is one of the hardest things that we must learn to do. Many of us hold onto our past which keeps us from moving forward. Some of us hold onto unhealthy relationships thinking that we can’t make it without a certain person in our life. Some of us hold onto past hurts which hinders us from being free to accept the love of another person. Some of us hold onto old ideas and precepts that close us off from accepting what may be a better way. Some of us can’t let go because of our pride, but regardless of our reasons, we have to be willing to let go of it all if it is in the way of God being our first priority. God considers anything that we hold onto too tightly as competition and He has told us that we are not to have any other gods before Him. Anything that we can’t let go of becomes an idol to us and God will not allow that to continue to exist.

We must come to the place in our lives that we place everything that we love and hold dear to us into the hands of God and trust Him with it. We must have faith in God and not wonder if God will take care of us. We all need to get to that point where we are willing to obey and trust God no matter what the cost. Let go and let God take control of your life so that you can enjoy His blessings and reach the destiny that He has planned for you.

Have a wonderful day in the presence of the Lord. Love you all.

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Do remember who you are in Christ?

Good day everyone!

I was led to this message for everyone to reflect on. Maybe you are going through a difficult stretch. Where every day a new problem seemed to pile on top of an older one. Where you were increasingly asking, “God, why are you allowing all these things to happen?” “Why?” Small word but a big question. At some point it begins to seem like the biggest question of all. You want to say to God, “Another problem? Really? Don’t I have enough already?” If that is where you are at this moment my answer to you is “We don’t always know the reasons,”  “but we can always know the goal.” Have a wonderful day as you remain in His presence. Love you all. Jeff

Remember who you are in Christ?

Maybe you don’t understand the difference, but hopefully this passage will help Colossians 3:10. “God is always in the renewal business; His goal is to renew you in knowledge in His own image.”

I hope It encourages you to think less about what God was doing to you and more about what He wanted to do within you. You may not have understand much of why the problems were piling up, but you could understand a lot about how you need to respond. You need to “put on the new self,” to more fully embrace the new nature He had created within you when you came to Christ. You could become more like Christ. If you can’t control the problems – and so often we cannot – you can respond by asking for God’s help to put on this new self in His image. This would be a new self that trusted in His love, experienced His peace, asked for His wisdom, and relied on His strength.

Remember difficulties are, well, difficult, even painful. But this will give you hope to get through the difficulties. You can be sure that God is at work in your life and that in the end He will do a good work within you. If you are experiencing a difficulty, pain or hurt, bring it to God in prayer. Ask Him to give you wisdom in how to respond. He is always at work to renew your life. You can trust Him to carry you through until, as the Apostle Paul tells us, Christ “is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

How do we see things?

What a powerful statement of faith by the Apostle Paul. His spiritual view was crystal clear. He could see his sufferings as a reason to rejoice, because he knew that in them all of Christ’s power was at work. There are times that we don’t look at things from a spiritual point of view. We see what is in front of us and respond accordingly. We look at them as stumbling blocks or things that are in the way of us getting from one place to another. But not so much with Paul. He saw what he faced with a different viewpoint. He looked at them through the eyes of Christ. He saw the Power of God at work to get him through.

“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10

God is omnipotent or all-powerful. He is able to do whatever He wills. God’s power is limited only by His character. “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) God demonstrates that power through the redeeming grace of His Son, Jesus. The same power that conquered the grave lives in us as followers. The same power that defeated sin and death lives in us. This is what Paul understood.

How does the knowledge of this change the way we pray? Well, it’s like this. There is no illness, no sickness, no disease that is more powerful than the Power of God. There is no criticism, no accusation, no rebuke that is more powerful than the Power of God. There is no necessity, no requirement that is more powerful than the Power of God. There is no attack, no harassment, no oppression, no mistreatment, no intimidation that is more powerful than the Power of God, and there is no suffering, no pain, no sorrow, no anguish, no grief, no heartache, no concern, no worry, no misery that is more powerful than the Power of God.

The Apostle Paul’s faith was grounded in incredible belief. Paul encouraged Timothy by presenting himself as a model of faith and belief. “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” (2 Timothy 1:12) And we must also carry this faith with us in what we face and how we go about praying through it.

My friends, God cares for us and defends us. He protects us and teaches us. He guides us and keeps us. God is the guardian of His Word and His promises. When we pray, we must believe that the Power of God is at work in us and through us and resides in our prayers. We must simply believe that God is and He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Have a wonderful day as knowing that when we weak we are strong. Love you all.

When my Heart is Overwhelmed, Lord lead me to the Towering Rock of Safety!

Good day everyone! I was led to this message for everyone to reflect on, and I thought it was a fitting passage and message with the terror attack in Orlando. No matter where we are, no matter how far we are from home, we can cry to Him for help and God will hear our cry. Wherever we are, we have access to the throne of grace where we will find help in the time of need. That’s a promise, one that will lead us to the Rock every time there’s a need.That which separates us from our other comforts should drive us so much the nearer to God, the fountain of all comfort. Even when we are around strange surroundings. God never abandons us. His all-surpassing strength is always with us.

“From the ends of the earth will I cry to you for help, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the towering rock of safety.” Psalm 61:2

No matter how overwhelmed our heart may feel at times, it must be lifted up to God in prayer. There is no other solution for life’s problems, and He’s always there with arms opened wide; many times He’s waiting for us just to ask for His help.

The next time you’re at the end of your rope, or your circumstances seem to be swallowing you up, or problems are overwhelming you, be sure to run to Him in prayer . . . no amount of wishing and hoping and positive thinking will rescue you like the arm of the Most High reaching down and guiding you to the path of deliverance from your situation.

Remember, if He leads you to the rock (and He will), you will be on top of your problems and see your circumstances from a far different perspective. This Rock is Christ, and we are safe if we are in Him.

Father, thank You for reminding us that You are always near, that we can, at any moment, reach out to You and You will concern Yourself about our business. Father, at times there are many that are reading this that feel overwhelmed, but I thank You and praise You for the assurance that there is a Rock that is higher than we are. It is Your desire to meet our every need regardless of where we are, what the situation is and how difficult the circumstances are. Lord, thank You for all You’ve done . . . Amen!

Have a wonderful day as you remain in the presence of the towering rock of safety. Love you all.

Fear?

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”~  Isaiah 43:1

So when the spirit of fear comes, recognize that it has no power unless you give it power. Don’t give it power by speaking what fear speaks. Don’t give it power by meditating on it. Instead, let the power of the Word of God rise up within you. Declare what God says; declare that God has given you all authority in heaven and earth. Declare that no weapon formed against you shall prosper.

Remember, no matter how big fear presents itself, it’s no match for the power of Almighty God. When you yield yourself to Him, you tap into His power. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. God is bigger than your problems and bigger than fear. Let faith rise up in your heart because faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

God knows where you are and what you are going through!

We need to thank you God for reminding us that He knows where we are, and what we are going through, and for always being near us, and for the reminder that He created us for fellowship. It’s so easy to seclude ourselves when we’re feeling down, but that’s not what He want for us.  Even though we knew it all along, but it was just so easy. Father help us to find fellowship that is encouraging, Help us to encourage others, and to not put ourselves in a place where we will be tempted to shut others out.

“O Lord, you know all about this. Do not stay silent. Do not abandon me know, O Lord.” Psalm 35:22

I find the above words so encouraging. Just to remember that the Lord sees us, He knows what we are going through, to remember that we are not alone – Wow isn’t that encouraging?

However, we don’t always remember those words. It seems that so often so many people feel alone. Like no one else understands what they’re going through. Do you ever feel that way? Like no one even cares? In today’s world, I think it’s easy to feel like that and I bet a lot more people feel that way than are willing to admit it.

Things don’t always go our way, things aren’t always easy, and the people that surround us hurt us with their words and actions (intentionally or not). Life is rough. It’s just that simple. When many feel alone, they usually seclude themselves even more. For many this seems like a natural response. It’s like they want to be by themselves, so that they can be lonely in peace. It sounds pretty silly to actually say that, but it’s the truth. I can’t help but wonder if that’s exactly what Satan wants from us. If he plays on our emotions to seclude us from those who could encourage us, and help us to realize that we are not alone. Like Satan wants us to seclude ourselves to keep us protected from a world that cares – after all, if we seclude ourselves, it will be harder to see that we are wrong.

I don’t know what trials you are going through, but I do know that life is rough. I also know that God sees us where we are. Satan may want us to stay secluded and lonely for as long as possible, but that’s not what God wants. He built us for fellowship (Genesis 2:18). When we seclude ourselves, we aren’t pleasing God, but helping Satan to get a foothold on our minds. God wants us to encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11), but when we hide away, we aren’t letting others bring us that encouragement that God wants us to have – and we certainly aren’t giving any encouragement to others.