There comes a time in every Christian’s life when they feel the world standing against them. The devil makes us feel small and weak. In those moments what should we do? What should we say? What should we pray? Answer: we should trust God! We should say “look world! I’ve got God on my side! What have you got?” We should praise and God will show us what to pray.
“In this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world.” -Jesus
In Jesus we are safe, in Jesus we are saved!
Everyone probably knows the song you are so beautiful; but imagine that as the love song that God sings to you. I don’t know about you but I want God to think I’m beautiful, on the inside. I want God to smile down and sing ‘you are so beautiful to me,’ with an angel choir as back up obviously.
To be seen as beautiful by your father is a wonderful thing. Don’t you think?
To God we are beautiful when we screw up, when we fail, when we try, when we are hurt, broken or sad. The times when we may seem ugly to the people around us we are still beautiful to God. He loves our inglorious messes, He knows how hard we have struggled and to Him the struggle is beautiful because we have not given up. To God a simple act of kindness is more beautiful than fireworks. Opening the door for a person who has too many things to carry, donating a jacket to a homeless shelter, working the mission field. God sees all works for Him as beautiful. He finds it beautiful when you pray for your neighbors and offer a word of encouragement on a friend’s facebook page. It’s not hard to be beautiful to God; we were born beautiful to Him. We just have to keep being Jesus to the world and maybe then the world too will see our beauty.
According to the richness of His grace.-Ephesians 1:7
What a statement, the richness of God’s grace. Richness that if put into gold or gems would overflow the ocean and fill the greatness of the deserts. God’s grace is the reason we all have a chance to get into his paradise; God’s grace is the reason we always have someone to turn to and the reason life has worth; God’s grace is never ending. Grace is defined as the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. When you look at the definition of grace it’s a single sentence statement, which seems far too simple. Grace, God’s grace is simple; it’s straightforward, God loves us! His grace is unmerited, He gives us blessings, He saves ALL of us and ALL of us are sinners who need to be saved! There is no clincher, there is no pay back in the end, God is abundant in grace and in His grace is mercy. Grace and mercy go together, why should the God who knows everything about us give us blessings? He knows what we’ve done, what we’ve thought and He knows we deserve punishment, but instead He is merciful and blesses us through His richness of grace. That’s our Father who loves us, our daddy who we cry out to, He is all-powerful and full of mercy and grace.
In God, I will praise His word, In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid; what can flesh do unto me? –Psalm 56:4
How many times have we sat back and just screamed because we didn’t know what else to do? Instead of fears and screams, we need prayer and praise. As long as we have God on our side nothing can hurt us, it’s when we try to do things without God that we stumble and fall. When we stumble with Jesus He is there to catch us and we never fully hit the ground. Jesus is there with His hand on our backs guiding us along, even though we do not always feel Him, He is there, and we have no reason to be afraid. He dries our tears when we cry and jumps with us when we are glad, He is our friend and our savior.
Patience and understanding are two things which cause most people to groan inside when mentioned. Not many want to go to the effort of having patience with other people and trying to understand their situation takes too much brain strain; so what is our solution? We get agitated and sometimes even lash out, (why else would cars have horns?) We look to vent our frustration and make ourselves feel better, often causing the irritating person to feel worse about their private problem that is causing them to bother us. Most people don’t go out of their way to be a problem, some do, but not most. We all have moments where we drive people crazy. Patience and understanding are things we want other people to have with us but are not things we want to have with others. Like I said, it’s too much work. But when Jesus said, “Treat others as you would have others treat you,” He meant it. Jesus had the ultimate patience, ‘of course He did,’ you say, ‘He is God’s son.’ True but He was made into full man and experienced the same temptations we do; don’t you think that Jesus felt annoyed at times? Any of the rest of us would have eventually just told the pharisees after the second, or even the first encounter with them what they could do with their opinions. Jesus didn’t because He did not yield to the spirit of irritation. Yes we need to vent, but let us try to instead vent to God and tell Him how we feel and ask Him what we should do about it. Don’t feel too bad about being annoyed, but try to see the situation from the other person’s point of view and then renew an old saying, ‘what would Jesus do?’
It is not what is outside, but what is in.
If God was a miner of precious stones, if He delved deep into the mountains of the world in search of all who were worthy to be fit into a piece of His crown would He pick you? Would He pick me? Would He pick any of our friends or relations? No, because none of us are worthy to be picked by God, to be called His special treasures; but God doesn’t look for those who are worthy; instead He looks for those who have potential, diamonds in the rough. We are less than adequate here on earth, but once we are with God, brought forth into pure beings who serve Him fully, then we will have been refined and been made worthy. Even the most devout Christians have their flaws and yes we do go through a refining process here on earth, but only in Heaven will our true lights shine as reflections of the glowing radiance of Christ.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?- Romans 8:35
Many things can separate us from the love of friends, neighbors, spouses and even family. But nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We are His and He is ours. No matter what we do or say, even if we are not Christians God loves us. Just because you can’t see the sun doesn’t mean it’s not there. God loves us! All of us! And no one and no thing can change that. Not even we can change that. We may want God to leave us be at times, and want to do things our way without having to consider what His will might be, but even when we are like that God stays close and waits until we see that we need Him and He knows best; and all the time He is waiting on us He is loving us, because nothing can separate us from the love of Christ!
I know it is not scriptural, really, but when you think of it- discontentment can be such a subtle sin that we don’t even realize that it is there.
If only we could all laugh at yesterday and then forget all that went wrong and move on. We are all weak, and prone to sin, but the sins of yesterday are past and as long as we have asked for forgiveness we are all saved from them. As long as you can laugh at yesterday and smile at the possibilities of today nothing will hold you back.
We must learn to take our contentment from God and hold tight to His unchanging hand.
As my mother says: If we truly lived in contentment and fully trusted God how peaceful our lives could be. – Lynne VanBeek.
We can learn to not be discontented by trusting in God and knowing that somehow all things that happen to us are for our good, though we may not see it until the very end. Trust is Faith and Faith in God draws us closer to Him.
Better is little with the fear of Jehovah, then great treasure and trouble therewith-Proverbs 15:16
One of Tolkien’s poems is about an Elvin treasure that has a deep magic upon it; Magic so deep that eventually the elves leave. During this poem a dwarf finds the treasure and delves deeper and deeper into the mountain until he is old, deaf and blind. A young dragon comes and kills the old dwarf taking his treasure. Latter the dragon is old, deaf and blind, when a young knight comes in and slays the dragon taking his treasure. Next the same happens to the knight and when the crusaders come he is also slain. The crusaders leave the treasure untouched and soon it is forgotten. A treasure that takes the very soul of a person, dragon, dwarf, is also like a coveted sin. Many have sins that they know deep down are wrong but they will not yield them. Those sins will eventually cause them great trouble. It is better to have a little and trust fully in God and serve him than to have great riches and power that eventually consume and destroy you.
Carried in the cross 