Peace and Hope

We all feel lost, out of place, hurt. We all struggle with life. Sometimes it is all too easy to feel alone and helpless and unwanted. We may face opposition or pain. We will struggle. It's a fact of life... but God brings PEACE and HOPE into our darkness!

God gives us PEACE. He gives us comfort in our sufferings and our trials. Whenever you feel alone all you need to do is look to Him for His PEACE and His HOPE... 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:1-5

These verses tell us not only that God gives us PEACE... but HOPE. They show us that not only should we be thankful for the GOOD that God gives us, but for the SUFFERING He gives us as well. God USES the suffering, the bad that we all face, to make us stronger, to define us and to give us HOPE. And that hope is beautiful and wonderful and given to us by God himself. 

We have this PEACE and this HOPE through one thing and one thing alone... JESUS.

God gives us PEACE, HOPE and SALVATION through Jesus. When we did nothing for Him, quite the contrary we sin all the time, He gave us salvation through Jesus' death. Through His death we receive PEACE and GRACE and LIGHT. 

Jesus brings LIGHT into a dark world. My dark world and your dark world. Through faith in Christ we are given PEACE and HOPE. So whenever you are struggling or hurting, remember that God USES the struggles and He will give you PEACE, HOPE and LIGHT. So rejoice! God saves and He's looking out for you, even when you may not see it. 

Meet Evil With Good

Everyone has had a time in their lives when they've been mistreated. Many times our first impulse is to return that mistreatment. If we were cursed often times we want to curse right back. We crave revenge, but Jesus tell us otherwise. 

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

Matthew 5:39

The LORD clearly wants us to not respond to evil with evil, but to respond with humility and love. David illustrates this ideal very well in 2 Samuel 16:5-14. In this part of the story David and his army get cursed and abused by an enemy of theirs. One of David's men desperately wants to kill the man, but David stops him, saying: 

"Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to."

2 Samuel 16:11b

David told his men to respond PEACEFULLY. He had them keep walking even though their every instinct told them to attack. David did something that is hard for most-- he met evil with good. 

No matter what evil you may face, don't succumb to the urge to fight back! Instead show grace and humility and meet their violence with love. When you meet evil with more evil, the evil has won and you have accomplished nothing but made the fire bigger. 

So, as Romans 12:21 says, over come the evil with GOOD! Be a light in this world of darkness and meet every bad thing with a positive response. 

Achieve

Everyone has goals-- be it straight A's in school, a promotion at work or simply being a good friend. Sometimes it can be easy to get stuck in a hopeless period when we feel like we no longer move towards our goals, but DON'T GIVE UP!

Remember that God is ALWAYS with you and He's always working in your favor. Even though the situation may seem bleak and you may have given up hope, remember that God is preparing something for you! So just have faith. 

A little faith can go a long way. So if you are discouraged and feel lost... just remember who is holding your life-- the LORD. He will look out for you and He is always with you. Any goal you have can be ACHIEVED through Christ! 

When you devote yourself to the LORD and have faith that He will help you reach any goal, you WILL succeed! After all, God is an AWESOME and POWERFUL God. Just think of all of the great things He's done in the past. Stand on His promises and believe that He can and will help you through. 

If God can defeat Goliath and shut the mouths of lions, what can't He do for you? If you are in a rough place and there seems to be no hope left, remember who you live for. Remember that God is always there for you and that, with a little faith, He can help you ACHIEVE anything. With God you will not fail! 

Free.

Life gets messy. It gets hard. It can really drag us down. We lose sight of any hope and we begin to feel overwhelmed and lost. Sometimes our lives seem to fall apart at the seems. We feel like we are losing the war. Getting smothered by the events around us. Like we are losing ourselves. But in times of trial it is important to remember that although we may feel like we are losing many battles, we have already won the war!

When when we feel we're losing battle after battle it can be all too easy to look to the world for comfort- to work, or our romantic interest, or our friends or adrenaline or alcohol- but in those times it is crucial that we look to the LORD! Because no matter how awful we feel or how bleak our situation looks He is ALWAYS there and He has already made us victorious over all.

Jesus will set you free from all of your burdens and your troubles and your problems and your fears and your hatred. He will bring you life and rid you of all bad. He won't always get rid of the problems, but He will give you the strength to endure them. He will carry your burdens for you. So no matter what you're facing remember to look to him who can set you FREE. 

If you feel lost or down or broken or trapped, have FAITH in Christ. His death and the life He gives is a free gift to you so accept it today! Allow God to work in your life and FREE you from all of the bad in your life. 

All About Communication

We all have friendships and spouses and family members that we love and want to have relationships with. We spend a lot of time talking and gossiping and sharing parts of our day with others in our lives. If we want our relationships to grow what can we do? COMMUNICATE. Talk. Share. Witness. Lecture.

If we don't talk to our friends and family, how can we expect to grow closer to them? If you stopped talking to your friend for a month how likely would it be that the two of you would still be close? Communication is KEY. Without communication any relationship can fall apart. That includes your relationship with God. 

God wants us to be CONSTANT in prayer. CONSTANT in communication with Him. He wants us to be praying to Him through out our day, because what is prayer? Prayer is talking to God. When you don't talk to a friend you drift apart, the same thing can happen with God! If we aren't talking to Him on a regular basis we will begin to lose our connection with Him... God WANTS us to talk to him!

You may not realize it, but any time you pray you are bonding with God--growing closer to Him and forming a stronger connection. Anything that brings us to pray like losing a loved one, losing a job, seeing a beautiful sunrise, etc is truly a blessing because it is spurring us to COMMUNICATE with God, to be CLOSER to God. 

Prayer is making a connection to God, talking to Him and communicating with Him. Telling Him all about your day, your fears, your dreams, and asking Him for help and guidance. God WANTS to talk to you and the greatest part is that He is ALWAYS there! So whenever you need a listening ear or a little help God is always there to hear you. 

Since God is always with you, why not always be talking to Him? Praying throughout the day, with out stopping is a great goal because it will bring you closer than ever to the Lord! So talk to Him, PRAY, because growth in any relationship is ALL ABOUT COMMUNICATION. So make it your goal this next week to talk to God more and to talk to your friends more. I think you will see some major relationship growth! 

He is With You

Life is hard. It throws you for a loop. Sends you in mysterious directions. Leaves you with guilt or shame. Knocks you down. Spits on you. Confuses you. It isn't easy to do the right thing and sometimes when life gets stressful you get discouraged and confused and afraid.

When the waters are rough you do NOT need to fear the waves. Whenever life seems to be knocking you down remember that God is ALWAYS there to pick you back up again. He is ALWAYS there to steer you in the right direction.

Whatever trial you are facing HAND IT OVER to the Lord! He will take the burden from your shoulders and He will help you through. He will calm the waters. He will make a way when no way seems possible. You're life may look hopeless or you may just face bad moods, no matter what you're going through God will be there for you. 

Whenever you feel alone, deserted, disappointed, upset, even happy and joyous God is ALWAYS there. He is making a path for you. Fighting for YOU. Helping YOU. He will help carry your burden for you. He will help you OVERCOME any obstacle!

He will go BEFORE you. He will STAND BEHIND. He is ALWAYS on your side. God is with you through everything and not only that but he is BEFORE you, pathing the way for you. Fighting for you. He wants to help you, so hand Him your stress, problems, anxieties, worries, fears, trials. Hand Him everything difficult in your life and you can overcome it! With the God of Angel Armies on your side, the God who can do indescribably more than you can imagine, you can always have the VICTORY. 

All About Jesus

What is it that God calls us to do? He calls us to do everything in order to GLORIFY HIM. He wants us to treat others as we would like to be treated, have patience, be loving, act like Jesus did and be a LIGHT. 

As a follower of Jesus, you will get a lot of attention and you will likely be praised for it. People will notice how different your attitude seems to be or they will question your beliefs. Many people will be taken aback by you happiness or patience. But there is a danger in that. Many Christians will begin to act for THEMSELVES--for popularity or fame or a good reputation or to make themselves feel good. That is doing good with the wrong motivation and therefore really not that good. 

Make sure that what you do, you do for the GLORY OF GOD. You should do what you do to make Him happy and to point others in His direction. Sometimes this can be hard or discouraging because people won't understand Jesus' call the way you do, they won't attribute your attitude to Christ. 

My companions saw the light, but did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

Acts 22:9

Even in the Bible there are cases of people not understanding how much God does and that He has a hand in things. Not understanding God's voice. Not seeing Him or hearing what He has to say. But don't give up hope!

Even when it seems impossible to get someone to see God, remember that He can do ANYTHING! Even if nothing seems to be happening now, He can make a way for it to happen eventually. He is the one who needs to do the work in their lives, not you. 

Jesus is the one who saves not you! All you can do is be a good example and try to point people in the right direction and Jesus will do the rest! So don't be discouraged if people don't understand that it truly is God's handiwork, but continue to do your part. 

Keep on living for Jesus and SHINING for Him. Make your life all about Jesus, give Him the glory and don't forget that He does the work, you just point people in the right direction! 

Awesome Creator

Do you ever have those LONG projects-- that take you weeks, months, maybe even years-- that when you finish it you just look at it with pride? Maybe you worked on your house, maybe you made a painting, a collage, or a song. Looking at what you've made can be really awe inspiring, but have you ever looked at what God has made? Have you ever looked at the world around you and just MARVELLED? Any where you turn you can see God's artistry in the sights and scenes surrounding you. It seems every detail is perfect and beautiful!

He made the oceans:

He made the mountains: 

He made the deserts: 

He made all the animals: 

He even made our solar system: 

He made EVERYTHING and each thing He made is so complex and glorious and beautiful, it's breathtaking! God truly is the one and only AWESOME CREATOR. He made the sun, moon and the skies. He made everything you can see and feel and smell in just 7 days! I don't know about you, but that makes any project I can make dim in comparison. Everything on Earth points to it's AWESOME creator! 

You know what is really mind blowing? God made all of this extraordinary universe and He made YOU. Not only that, but our awesome creator chose you and loves you. 

What are we that God should care about us? Look how tiny we are compared to a lion, to a mountain, to the universe, and the AWESOME creator who made it all cares about tiny, little us. Isn't that just amazing? God not only cares, but He loves us enough to send His son to die for us on the cross so that we might be saved. We do nothing but spite Him, we are tiny and minuscule and yet He loves us and chose to save US. That is truly AWESOME. 

Have you thanked your awesome creator lately? We should-- every day and every second because that is how much He has done and continues to do for us. 

Bridge

We have ALL sinned and that sin is what separates us from a pure and holy God. We all deserve punishment and suffering for that sin, but God is so gracious and merciful and He loves us so much that he FORGIVES and even gives us a way to be with Him!

 

Salvation is a GIFT from God, it is nothing that we can do on our own. We can never do enough good works or pay enough to cover our sin. Our sin requires a sacrifice and since we are sinners ourselves, we NEED the sacrifice, we cannot be or make it. God loves us so much that He sent His one and only son to be OUR sacrifice!

 



 

 

Jesus suffered and died for US. For OUR sins. He took our place. He healed us. He BRIDGED the gap between God and us and only through Jesus can we make it to God, not by ANYTHING that we can do on our own! Only by accepting Jesus' GIFT of sacrifice and salvation. Only Jesus can truly save us! Isn't that the best gift imaginable? 

 

 

 

We each have a choice: try to save ourselves through good works and perish or we can accept God's FREE GIFT of salvation and cross the BRIDGE of Christ! Which will you choose? 

Brokenness of All

Each and every one of us has flaws. Every single one of us struggles with something. Every one of us sins. We are not perfect. How many times have you lied, said a mean thing about a friend, or lashed out at someone? We are ALL broken and the trouble is we can't see how broken we really are. I've heard it put like this, a man who breaks his leg will immediately feel the pain and know he needs a doctor, but someone who is paralyzed and breaks his leg won't feel it and think he is fine. We are like the paralytic, so broken we don't even realize how broken we are.

ALL have sinned. Not just some of us, but ALL of us. The Bible says that that sin in all of us deserves punishment and justice. It says that we all deserve to die because of that sin. 

That is why we ALL need Jesus because we ALL have sinned. Lucky us though, our God is forgiving and loving and merciful and he has given ALL of us a gift of salvations through Jesus Christ. We are weak ALL weak on our own and we will continue to fail, but through our failing God will show us His mercy and goodness. 

When we are weak and we turn to God, we see just how strong he really is! We are ALL weak and broken and we ALL need Jesus! We cannot do this without him. 

So let me ask you this: Do you see how broken you are? Do you know that you need salvation? Have you accepted the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ? 

Reach Out

How often do we all get so wrapped up in our own lives that we forget there's an entire world around us? I know that I feel like I worry about myself too much. Like my life becomes all about ME and not enough about God and EVERYONE ELSE. God wants us to REACH OUT to people. To see more than just ourselves.

There are thousands, MILLIONS of lonely and hurting people out there. The world is vast and a lot of times we tend to forget that--I know I do. What if instead of worrying about ourselves we began to think about OTHERS. What if we began to HELP people when we could--comforting people, volunteering, simply talking to someone, sharing Jesus with people? How different would our world be? 

As followers of Christ, we should be willing to HELP people in any circumstance. We should put others ABOVE ourselves. Keep in mind that not everything we do for others has to be extreme...

Simply being cheerful and polite and KIND can brighten someones day and be "good medicine"! If we act as Jesus taught us to, with a joyful and loving attitude, we will improve peoples' lives! All we have to do is REACH OUT to the world around us. 

If we take a look at the world around us, we will see a lot of needy and lonely people. When we REACH OUT and act like Jesus did even with the small things, putting OTHERS above ourselves we can CHANGE THE WORLD--or at least brighten it a little!!

New You

Today I read a really great section of Acts, Acts 3. It is a rather long, so I won't post the whole thing, but I would definitely encourage you to take out your Bibles or even just google Acts 3. I found that it really inspiring. Here's a summary of what happens: 

 There were these two guys, Peter and John, both were followers of Jesus. They were on a mission to witness to people and to spread God's Word, so they went to a Jewish temple--just think about that. There's these two guys going into a busy Jewish temple, where they don't believe in Jesus, preaching all about what Jesus had done for them. A pretty risky move. Anyway, just outside the temple they see this beggar who had been lame since birth.

He asks Peter and John for money and what do they tell him? "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." (3:6) And up he went, the lame beggar walking around and praising the name of Jesus! All of the other people at the temple saw this guy, this lame beggar that they had seen everyday for years, they saw him walking. Knowing it had to be a miracle they began to question and praise John and Peter, who promptly set them straight and told them that it was not by their power, but by GOD'S power that the beggar had been healed. 

Isn't that just inspiring? That God can heal ANYONE. He can make anyone a new creation--No matter who you were or what you've been through. God can work in your life like He worked in this beggars.

God tells us that He can save us, He can CHANGE us whenever we call on His name! He can make us clean, so ANY sin we committed is just gone. He makes us a clean slate again! He makes us NEW CREATIONS. 

"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord," Acts 3:19

God is there for us to SAVE us and to CLEAN us and to REDEEM us. He wants to make us into new creations. He wants to show the new you. The true you! 

Jesus will change your life. He will take away your guilt and fill you will peace and joy and HOPE! You just have to repent and allow Him to work in your life. Because if He can use a lame beggar as His witness, why can't he use you? Correct answer: He CAN. 

If you truly do allow Jesus to change your life and make you a new creation in Him, then give him all the glory!! In Acts, John and Peter easily could have become famous and renowned, but they CHOSE to give the glory to God. We should all take after their example.

There are many lessons to be learned out of one teeny little chapter in Acts:
1. God can use ANYONE to be His witness--even a lame beggar
2. Have Holy Boldness and don't be afraid to share your faith in Christ, like John and Peter did
3. God can change ANYONE and make ANYONE new
4. No matter what is going on in your life, give the all the glory to God!


Now it's your turn to allow Jesus to change your life and turn you into the NEW YOU!

Mountains

Sometimes life is just hard. Obstacles come in our paths that feel completely impassable! Sometimes it feels we're climbing Mount Everest and it's not easy. But with a little FAITH that mountain, that problem can be diminished!

Really it's only a mountain. What's that compared to our SAVIOUR? To our God? He made all things. He can surpass all things and with His strength WE can surpass all things! With God we can win even the hardest of battles. Mountains are to God a grain of sand.

God can take our hardships and our obstacles and just MOVE them out of the way. He makes all of the hurdles of life JUMPABLE. He enables us to do ANYTHING, to WIN any battle, to CONQUER any fight! All we need is a little faith. 

God has a plan for our lives. When we believe that and begin to follow His will for us, there isn't anything we can't handle! God wouldn't give us a situation that we couldn't succeed in. Not everything will be easy... but it will be POSSIBLE because of God! He knows our future-- He PLANNED it-- so He knows what He's doing. 

We have NOTHING to fear. God is already going ahead of us and making the way of our future and any obstacle He puts in our way He will help us overcome! 

Every trial--even one as seemingly big as a MOUNTAIN-- can be overcome with God. All we need to do is have FAITH and follow His will for us! You CAN surpass any challenge that comes your way.