Tag Archives: Faith

Mar23

Pray with Your Eyes on God – Not Your Difficulties

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“Then Peter called to him: ‘Sir, if it is really you, tell me to come over to you, walking on the water.’ ‘All right,’ the Lord said, ‘come along!’ So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he looked around at the high waves, he was terrified and began to sink. ‘Save me, Lord!’ he shouted.”

Matthew 14:28 – 30 TLB

We may not be called to walk on water, but we do walk through periods of tumultuous circumstances in life. Right now our world is battling the pandemic virus COVID-19, and we are being tossed about in uncharted waters of a global shutdown. Every time we turn on the television or scroll through social media, we are inundated with a flood of bad news. If we focus on the swirling waves of difficulties surrounding us, we can easily feel like we are being swallowed up by the surge of life’s problems.

Peter experienced a rather unusual example of God’s power when he went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. His faith in Jesus gave him the courage to throw his leg over the side of the boat and step out into the stormy sea.  However, his faith wavered when he realized what he was doing. Once he took his eyes off Jesus and focused on the crushing waves around him, he began to sink.

Like Peter, we often start out with great intentions. We may be “prayed up” and filled with holy confidence before we begin to face the day. But once we wade into the undulating sea of life, our faith begins to falter, and we sink in despair. We feel ill-equipped to navigate the storms that batter us. Yet this doesn’t mean that we have failed. When Peter’s faith faltered, he immediately reached out to Jesus. In his time of greatest fear, he called on his Savior to rescue him.

When you are afraid of the troubles that swirl around you, keep your eyes on Jesus’ power rather than your own inadequacies. Call out to Him for help, and He will rescue you from the stormy seas.

“We have to pray with our eyes on God ~ not on the difficulties.” ~ Oswald Chambers

“Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “truly you are the Son of God.”

Matthew 14:31-33

Mar21

Every Storm Runs Out of Rain

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God is the ultimate // S t o r m  W h i s p e r e r ! //

He’s still in The business of calming storms — even pandemic life storms. When you feel like your courage is melting in the face of these desperate circumstances, call on the One who can hush the towering waves of panic and turn them into peace. 🌊 🌊🙏🏻☝🏻✌🏻🙌🏼

“So they cried out to the Lord in their distress, and God brought them out safe from their desperate circumstances. God quieted the storm to a whisper; the sea’s waves were hushed. So they rejoiced because the waves had calmed down; then God led them to the harbor they were hoping for.”

Psalm 107: 28 – 30 (CEB)

Sep22

Soul Strength

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Sails to a ship

 

 

“On the day I needed You,
I called, and You responded 
and infused my soul with strength.”
Psalm 138:3 (VOICE)
 

 Do you need an infusion of strength in your soul? Then plug into your Divine Power Source through prayer.

Prayer is your direct connection to God.  It is sharing what’s on your heart with your Heavenly Father ~ not that God doesn’t already know what’s on your heart, because He knows that better than you can even express it to Him. But by expressing your heart’s desires to Him, you acknowledge your dependence on Him and your gratitude for His blessings and help. In fact, one of the shortest verses in all the Bible, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NLT) says simply, “Pray continually.” So in other words, in all circumstances, never stop talking to God and sharing your heart with Him.

  • When you are worried, pray.
  • When you are afraid, pray.
  • When you are thankful, pray.
  • When you are sick, pray.
  • When you’re in need, pray.
  • When you’re heartbroken, pray.
  • When you are confused, pray.
  • When you are happy, pray.
  • When you need courage, pray.
  • When you need comfort, pray.
  • When you need forgiveness, pray.

Even though God doesn’t always answer your prayers in the exact way you think He should, you can be confident that:

  • He bends down to listen ~ “Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!” Psalm 116:2 (NLT)
  • He hears your prayers~ “We live in the bold confidence that God hears our voices when we ask for things that fit His plan.” 1 John 5:14 (VOICE) 
  • And He answers your prayers ~  “I will answer their prayers before they finish praying.” Isaiah 65:24 (CEV)

So tap into your heavenly source of soul strength through prayer, and remember this good advice, “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” Phil 4:6 (MSG)

“Never stop praying.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NLT)

“You can get anything—anything you ask for in prayer—if you believe.” Matthew 21:22 (TLB)

Sep21

The Bridge to Your Brightest Tomorrow

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Bridge to the brightest tomorrow

 


“The deepest pains may linger through the night,
    but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.”
Psalm 30:5b (VOICE)
 

When you’re in the clutches of an agonizingly painful situation, it’s easy to focus on your suffering and lose sight of the bright ray of hope emerging on your horizon.  If your world is falling apart the difficulties you are experiencing can be overwhelming. Every thought is filtered through a sieve of pain, pressure and misery. Jeremiah was going through a tough time, too, and here he gives a vivid description of how he was feeling ~ including the One thing that pulled him through:

“Just thinking of my troubles and my lonely wandering makes me miserable.
That’s all I ever think about, and I am depressed.
Then I remember something that fills me with hope.
 The Lord’s kindness never fails!
If He had not been merciful, we would have been destroyed.
The Lord can always be trusted to show mercy each morning.
Deep in my heart I say, “The Lord is all I need; I can depend on Him!”

Lamentations 3: 19-24 (CEB)

It’s understandable that you might be depressed if you continually think about your troubles. But if you turn your attention to the God of Hope and reach down deep into the depths of your heart to say, “The Lord is all I need; I can depend on Him!” ~ your pain will be displaced with seeds of heavenly hope, which will grow into His divine joy, the kind which greets your soul with a smile. Remind yourself that God can use everything in your life for something good…even the darkest nights and the deepest pains.

“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18(MSG)

Sep7

Hope Sets us Free

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Hope sets us free to experience joy

May the God of Hope fill you with all
JOY and PEACE
as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope…
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
 

With God, nothing is impossible!  So if you place your trust in the God of All Possibilities…if you wholeheartedly believe in the God of Miracles…if you have faith in the God of Hope…you will be filled with joy and peace.  Your feeling of hopelessness will change to hope-FULL-ness, so much so that you will be filled to the brim and bubbling over with hope. The despair, distress and discouragement that once consumed you will be replaced with confident expectation.

So if your life circumstances seem irreversible, incurable, or insurmountable, simply place your trust in the God of Hope and experience His joy and peace.

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”
Luke 1:37 (NKJV)
 
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
 
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”
Hebrews 6:19 (NIV)
Sep6

Strength that Endures the Unendurable

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good morning suwanee
 
“We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—
not the grim strength of gritting your teeth
but the glory-strength God gives.
It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy…”
Colossians 1:11 (MSG)
 

Are you enduring something today that seems “unendurable?”  Perhaps you are suffering through pain or heartbreak that feels unbearable, like you don’t have the stamina to take another step. Or maybe you are living through oppressive circumstances that seem impossible to tolerate, and you are completely depleted of your own energy.

The great news is that God gives “glory-strength” to His children, which allows us to endure the seemingly unendurable. The strength of the Lord will support you and carry you through your time of suffering. His divine power source gives you the inner fortitude to stick it out over the long haul, and it’s a source of energy that is readily available and constantly renewable.  Each one of God’s children has a direct pipeline to this heavenly power supply, so there will never be an energy crisis with God’s children!

The truly beautiful thing about the uplifting strength that God’ provides is that it spills over into joy. Once you tap into the glory-strength of God, you realize that with Him, you can endure anything! And that wonderful realization brings about a pure joy which bubbles up from inside and spills into all areas of your life. Your circumstances might not have changed one bit, but you have been infused with a glorious strength to endure the unendurable!

“I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. ”
Philippians 4:13 (NIV)
Apr18

The Good News of Good Friday

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IMG_7286 - Version 2“~ the message concerning faith that we proclaim:  If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord  will be saved.”

Romans 8b-10, 13 (NIV)

Faith is not something we do. It is a response to what God has done already on our behalf…

The message of salvation is beautifully simple:

1. Believe in your heart and

2. Say with your mouth that Jesus Christ is the risen Lord.

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”  2 Corinthians 9:15

Feb14

Love Never Fails

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Snow Valentine

And so faith, hope, love remain
[faith—conviction and belief respecting man’s relation to God and divine things;
hope—joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation;
love—true affection for God and man, growing out of God’s love for and in us],
these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 (AMP)
 
 

LOVE

is patient.
is kind.
does not envy.
does not boast.
is not proud.
does not dishonor others.
is not self-seeking.
is not easily angered.
keeps no record of wrongs.
does not delight in evil.
rejoices with the truth.
always protects.
always trusts.
always hopes.
always perseveres.
never fails.
(1 Corinthians 13:4 – 8a)
 

Love never gives up.  It is kind and puts others first.  Love is not jealous or envious and doesn’t brag or boast.  It doesn’t force itself on others, nor fly off the handle. Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, and always takes pleasure in the truth.  Love always protects and trusts.  It always looks for the best in others and never looks back. Love keeps going to the end.  Love never ends.
 
“Whoever does not love, does not know God, because                             

God…is love.”

 (1 John 4:8)

Nov17

God Leads The Way

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“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you;

He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)

With God as your life’s Heavenly Navigator, you never have to worry or be fearful when forging ahead into uncharted territory.  You can confidently trust that the Lord is going before you, guiding you in the path that is best for you.  He promises to be with you each step of the way…even in the deepest, darkest valleys and through the most treacherous terrain. When the going gets tough, He will never abandon you or forget about you.

Perhaps you are struggling with decisions about your career, finances, relationships, child-rearing, education, or even treatment options for a health crisis.  You would never travel to a new place without consulting a map or GPS system. Why do you think that you could blindly traverse though life’s journey without consulting God’s divine wisdom?  He is your holy Field Guide for your earthly trek. Instead of feeling overwhelmed or afraid, focus on the fact that God is already ahead of you, leading the way.  He knows the plans He has in store for you ~ seek His excellent guidance and ask Him for wisdom.   With Him by your side, you can have confidence that the choices you make are best

He’s already in your future…follow His lead.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11
“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Genesis 28:15
“For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.”
Deuteronomy 4:31
Oct28

The Only Thing That Counts

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only thing that counts

Out of 66 books, 1188 chapters, and 31,175 verses in the Holy Bible, it all boils down to this:  “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”  Galatians 5:6b

Take a moment and allow these words to sink deep into your mind and your heart.  Meditate on their meaning and grasp the magnitude of their importance.  Essentially, this statement tells us that if we are NOT expressing our faith in God through our love for others, nothing else we are doing really matters. 

Wherever you find yourself in life, God has specifically placed you there for a unique purpose that only you can fulfill. In essence you are on a mission from God each and every day of your life to express your faith through acts of love. This expression of love can take many forms:  kindness, respect, appreciation, involvement, time commitment, sharing, patience, giving, caring, or friendship.  Whether you’re a business executive, clerk, teacher, nurse, care taker, house keeper, bus driver, waitress, stay-at-home-mom, retiree, grandparent, student, etc.., you are an integral part of the body of Christ.  Imagine the difference we could make in an untold number of lives if each of us went about our days expressing our faith through love.

You can be totally filled with spiritual lessons, perhaps you can even quote verse after verse from the Bible, but if you are not expressing your faith in Jesus Christ through your outpouring of love for others, nothing else matters.

Tape this verse to your bathroom mirror, next to your bed, or on the dashboard of your car so that you can start each day with one main focus concerning the only thing that counts.  In fact, this is such a short statement that you could easily memorize those eleven words and use them as a filter for  your thoughts and a framework for  your actions throughout each day.

Essentially the only thing that counts is a summation of Jesus’ response to the question, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?”  Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”  (Mark 12:28 – 31)  Love God, and express that love to your neighbor…it’s that simple.

 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  James 1:22

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, Galatians 3:23

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3