Trusting God alone to get you safely across!

This message is about trusting God and I hope and pray it touches your heart in such a powerful way that you keep telling yourself that, You are children of the Promise and NOTHING and I mean NOTHING can change that or destroy the purpose God has for your life. I want to bring  a message of truth for those struggling in this lost and perishing world. If you belong to Jesus Christ, you must stop acting as the world does every time a crisis happens in your life. Don’t let a little shaking of the ground or the darkness of the storm around you cause you to take your eyes off the One who ransomed your life for all eternity! Never forget that your life was redeemed by the righteous blood of Jesus and he is not ever going to let you lose this fight!

It takes true faith to trust that God is actually going to work your struggles out for your good. God never fails and He is faithful but the silence can be tormenting as you wait on His promises to be fulfilled. The enemy will taunt you to make you doubt God’s faithfulness, but the truth is that he is a defeated foe whose only weapon is his lies. The purpose and plan of God for your life have been settled long before you were created. Every single detail was known by God and He provided a way through every one of them. All it takes is for us to keep our eyes on Him and trust Him, but so often we forget what He has done for us in the past. 

Each trial brings fear and anxious thoughts. The devil always has a way to make you see the worst of each situation. For that reason, you are to take captive every thought and line them up to be obedient to the teachings of Christ. He has told us that He can rescue us from any situation. God’s has already planned in advance to supply the power that is needed for His people to climb the hills and survive the valleys in this life. There is not a single struggle you endure that He has not seen long before the world was created. Why then do we still worry that God is not going to show up in time to help us? Do we actually believe that the Creator of this world and everything in it is going to forget a single detail of our lives? Our hope is secure and the battle is won in every area of our lives. All that we must do is surrender our weaknesses to the one who can work them all out for our good. It means waiting and trusting while the battle rages on knowing that we are victors. There is no such thing as a defeated Christian! Stop carrying around burdens that are not yours. Worry is a tool that the enemy uses to deflect the truth from believers. He can’t steal your joy so don’t just hand it over to him when problems arise.

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The God of Hope!

Some days, it’s hard to keep it together. You try to maintain the right attitudes, to stoke your faith and expect God’s goodness, but circumstances seem to be winning the war of the heart. It feels like an enormous effort to keep the internal peace. And that effort sometimes takes energy we don’t have. That’s okay. God understands those “I can’t keep it together” days.  

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” -Romans 15:13

 

There’s always mercy and the strength available in His Presence, when we can find it. But what we really long for, and what He longs for on our behalf, is that we have the deep-down peace that isn’t an effort to “keep together” because it’s who we are. Sure, trying to maintain the right attitudes is important, but we want to get to the point where we don’t have to try. We want them to come naturally because our hearts have been transformed. We don’t want just to tell ourselves to be at peace; we want to actually have it.  

 

God is getting us to that place. It’s a process; the attitudes of the Spirit don’t come to us instantly. But the more we soak in His Presence and fellowship with His Spirit, the more He fills us with hope and peace. At some point these attitudes are no longer self-imposed. They overflow from within.  Seek that ideal. You won’t be perfect at it, but you can certainly grow in that direction. His Presence calms the storms within you without your having to keep a lid on them. He stirs up hope without your having to manufacture it. He cultivates joy without your having to talk yourself into it. By faith, let Him overflow.

Love, Peace and Joy! You can find it today!!!

I want to ask you a question: Do you love yourself?

Take a minute to think about it. It’s an important question because your answer will determine how much love you are able to give to others. You see, if you don’t love yourself in a healthy, balanced way, then you won’t be able to spread the love of God to those around you because you can’t give away something you don’t have to begin with.

Now, I’m not talking about a selfish, self-centered kind of love for yourself that is arrogant and puffed up. That is not what I’m saying. There is a balanced way to develop a godly appreciation for who you are and the abilities God has given you.

I talk about this a lot because I think one of the biggest problems we have today is how we feel about ourselves. It seems many people have a broken record playing in their head that keeps repeating, “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?”

One reason for this is we compare ourselves to other people and wonder why we can’t look or act like they do. Or we believe that God is mad at us for some reason…and then fall into the trap of thinking we need to try harder to measure up.

 

Don’t Be Misled

The devil wants us to feel bad about ourselves. He tries to mess with our thinking so we are always wondering why something is wrong with us. And many times we make the mistake of getting mad at ourselves because of it.

But God’s Word says that those who are in Christ have been made righteous. Second Corinthians 5:21 (AMP) says, “For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become…the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].” I like the Amplified version of this verse because it helps us understand the meaning of righteousness. As the verse says, it means that in Christ, we are as we ought to be. God created us. He approves and accepts us by His love and goodness.

 

Get Completely in God’s Will

As soon as you accept Christ, His love is poured into your heart.  In fact, He loved you before you ever accepted Him as your Savior.

I really want you to get this because the fact that God loves you is one of the most important truths you need to know. Loving God and then yourself in a healthy, balanced way is the first step toward fulfilling your destiny and becoming a vessel of God’s love so you can spread His love to others. It’s also the key to having everything Jesus died for you to have, like His righteousness, peace and joy.

I love what Romans 14:17 (AMP) says, “[After all] the kingdom of God is not a matter of [getting the] food and drink [one likes], but instead it is righteousness (that state which makes a person acceptable to God) and [heart] peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

That verse says the kingdom of God is not food or drink. I like to say that God is not about stuff. And He wants to give us something much more important—righteousness, peace and joy.

 

Are You Living in God’s Kingdom?

How much joy do you have? It’s pretty much impossible to have joy if you don’t know God loves you as you are and have peace with yourself. If you lack joy, maybe it’s because of the way you see yourself. Do you enjoy spending time with yourself? Some people get overly involved in activities because they can’t stand to be alone. And some folks are angry with themselves, so they avoid their own presence.

A good place to start growing in the area of balanced, godly self-love that includes a healthy attitude about yourself is by meditating on Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT): “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

Remember that God loves you unconditionally. He created your temperament, your talents, and all your other traits. But we all have specific areas we can grow in and things to work on. That’s okay. The Holy Spirit is willing and able to help you grow in areas of weakness. Like I often say, “I may not be where I want to be, but thank God I’m not where I used to be!”

Wherever you are in your relationship with God, know that He has singled you out and chosen you to be His child. He is pleased with how He made you and His love surrounds you. You are the apple of His eye.

God Intends for you to have Joy in your Circumstances!

God intends for you and I to have joy in your circumstances. But you may be asking, “How can I have joy when everything seems to be falling apart?” I think we all can relate to this. So I believe that this is what God wants to say to us through this passage. Let Him give you His joy by spending quality time with Him! Your problems will pale when you view them in the Light of His presence. 

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights.” ~Habakkuk 3:17-19 

 

When everything from our perspective seems to be going wrong, we need to see that our lives are in the hands of a sovereign God and one way we can do that is by practicing rejoicing.  KNOW that God will see you through! By doing so, we can find God as our strength learning to lean on God rather then on what we see. But in order to find joy, we must practice it.

 

Using this analogy, God will never force us to walk with Him against our will, but He wants beautiful music to flow from our lives. He wants us to develop such a heart of love for Him that we desire to practice joy, no matter what the circumstances may be.

 

Whatever you may be facing, God is bigger than your trouble. So, let His joy be your strength and He will help you surmount obstacles that once would have held you down.

Have a wonderful day saying in the presence of the Lord and let Him fill you with His joy. 

Please share this blog with others and help to reach out to the lost and those who need encouragement….all for the glory of God! 

 

A song in your heart

Do you have a prodigal? Do you long for your spouse to return to God? Do you have a friend whose faith has grown cold? God wants them back more than you do. Keep praying, but don’t give up. God places a song in the hearts of his children.

Psalm 40:3 says it’s a “new song in my mouth.” Some saints sing this song loud and long every single day of their lives. In other cases the song falls silent. Life’s hurts and happenings mute the music within. Long seasons pass and God’s song isn’t sung!

Truth is, we don’t always know if someone has trusted God’s grace. It isn’t ours to know. But we know this: Where there is genuine conversion, there is eternal salvation. Eventually his own will hear his voice, and something within them will awaken. And when it does—they will begin to sing again.

He has put a new song in my mouth
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the Lord.~ Psalm 40:3