Emotional and Mental Health - The Center of God's Will

 

Most people are either on top of the world right now, or buried under the burden of frustration, discouragement and disappointment. Jesus Christ makes the difference in both of these instances.

Even if someone is totally successful and right where their goals led them over the last few years, they may be as unsatisfied and unfulfilled as they were when they started their journey to the top.

Many people give up at this point and opt for a simpler life, downgrading their salary and vocational expectations for a quieter and less stressful lifestyle.

For Believers, living in the center of God's will is the only place where we find complete contentment. He may continue to lead us in the vein in which we started - adding an altered mindset, or He may change our circumstances completely.

It all hinges on finding and fulfilling God's directives for our life (Proverbs 3:5-6). We completely surrender our will and plans to Him, and live by the direction of His Holy Spirit instead of our human desires.

Even if God leads us through some valley or trial, we find His purpose for us in it. We can witness of His mercy and grace to a fellow traveler, learn a needed lesson, view His provision for us in a whole new light, and grow in our intimacy with Him through it all (1 Peter 4:12).

We learn to depend on His Body during our trials, to grow closer to our spouse, family and church family; our faith grows in the fact that we can count on certain people to help us and that God never fails us.

Prayer:

Father God, some trials devastate us to our very core. They shake the foundations of our trust in You and our faith in humanity. Yet, we often survive these unhappy circumstances with enduring blessings that we never would have experienced without them. Remind us to focus on You in the good times and the bad, giving You praise for each instance as we focus on You - You never change (Hebrews 13:8).

Help us to see life from Your viewpoint rather than our limited, human perspective. Spur us to remain faithful to You in spite of them. We look at life now through Your unfailing love and comfort, according to Your promises and provision (Psalm 119:75-76). Demonstrate Yourself to us in all of Your power and majesty. 

Thought for the Day:

Prayerfully surrendering our trials to God allows us to gain His perspective on what seems like a turn of bad luck; we ask God's Spirit for His wisdom and direction; and we come through these times of testing with a deeper faith and stronger spiritual, mental and emotional fortitude than we ever experienced in our life in the past.

Abiding in Christ

 

Salvation comes in stages. If we happily camp around the salvation of our spirit, we miss the glory of the sanctification of our soul. One day we will also experience the glorification of our body when Christ appears for His Saints (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

Once we realize that the divinity of Christ and all of the power of the complete triune Godhead live within every Born Again Believer, a new enthusiasm produces constant praise from our lips to God’s ears (2 Peter 1:3).

We no longer view our self as a grubby worm inching around in the world of selfishness and sin. Instead, we see our self as beautiful butterflies soaring in the Heavenly, spiritual realm of life.

God calls His elect and then reveals Himself to and in us. He has a purpose for each of our lives (Ephesians 1:11). He loves us with His abundant, unfading and everlasting love (Psalm 25:6; Jeremiah 31:3).

We are totally dependent upon Jesus for our direction, health and provision moment by moment throughout the day (Ephesians 1:9; Philippians 2:12-13). Through our connection to the Vine, the life of Christ flows through us by His Spirit and we produce much fruit for the Kingdom of God (John 15:8).

Through our union with Christ, we shed the shackles of our sin nature and submit to the dealings and leadings of God's Spirit in our life (1 Corinthians 1:30). As branches in the Vine of Christ, we experience God as our husbandman.

He prunes the flesh from us so more spiritual fruit may grow (John 15:1, 5). We walk out of the bondage to carnality and into the glorious freedom of the sons of God (Romans 8:21).

Jesus is our center and God is the focus of our life. We seek to do His will in our job, community, church, extended family and home. If we walk in the darkness of self and sin, we stumble and fail in all of our attempts (John 11:10).

As we walk in the light of Christ, we find fulfillment in living out His will for our life (1 John 1:7). God’s wisdom, grace, love and supernatural abilities reside within us in Jesus Christ and are always available to meet all of our needs and to walk in God's will for us (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Prayer:

Father God, as we abide in You throughout the day, Your wisdom, grace, love and peace manifest in our life and out into the world around us. As we abide in You, You provide us with a dedicated life full of the wisdom, strength and Godly conviction, which we need to further Your Kingdom in our world.

We look forward to the day when we can also walk in Your power, so You can make a true difference in others through our life. As we make every effort to walk in peace with You, You renew our soul and make us blameless and spotless at Your coming (2 Peter 3:14). Our perseverance in our walk with You, guarantees that we will not stop short of Your glorious riches, which You prepared for us before time began (Romans 9:23).

Thought for the Day:

Undistracted devotion to God allows us to tap into all of His power and majesty in order to live our life as Elijah, Moses and Enoch did; and we will steadily walk into complete maturity in Christ. - James 1:4

God is Not Mocked

 

We often take our success for granted. We feel entitled to receive the rewards of all we accomplish, because we forget where our blessings actually come from or to show gratitude to God for His provision in our life.

We expect to live a pleasant life and to reap the rewards of our hard work and planning, regardless of our behavior. We even grow lax spiritually and compromise our holiness by dabbling in the devil's den of iniquity.

We can be sure, however, that our sin will find us out (Galatians 6:7; Numbers 32:23). We will eventually reap the destruction that we are sowing. Our quality of life may suddenly be jerked right out from under us as this devastation catches up with us.

We start to reap the rotten fruit, which is the result of the tainted seeds we planted in our garden of life for so long. We saw nothing wrong with our little indiscretions with Satan's suggestions, because we worked hard, provided for our family and lived for righteousness more than giving in to sin.

Yet, God will not be mocked, and evil corrupts our good morals and grieves the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:33; Ephesians 4:30). God will not endure our disobedience forever. There comes a time when we have to pay the dues of our corrupt flirting with sin.

We may experience God's discipline in small, compassionate ways, which brings our repentance; or we may harden our heart and continue in immorality until we eventually lose the blessings of God on our life, which we are used to experiencing.

We tend to get angry with God at times like these, railing against Him for expecting us to walk uprightly before Him all the time, comparing our self to the lives of other people rather to understand God's requirements that we live a holy life before Him (Luke 12:48).

If we stand firm in our pride and resist the Spirit's drawing, we will sink lower and lower into the mire of destruction and wickedness, continuing to blame others for our behavior and making excuses for our thoughts, words and deeds.

However, if we surrender to God's discipline, humble our pride and accept our fault in the circumstances, repenting with our entire soul and spirit for our duplicity, then God can favor us with His blessings once more.

Prayer:

Father God, human pride and self-assurance are snares of the enemy. You show us in Your Word how You want us to live our life. Unless we walk justly and love mercy and walk humbly before You, we will reap the corruption of our sin regardless of how inconsequential that we consider it to be (Micah 6:8).

Draw us close to You, never let us go, restore to us the joy of our salvation and help us to lay down our sins so we can hear You rejoicing over us with singing (James 4:8; Psalm 51:12; Zephaniah 3:17). Never allow us to grow so lax in our spiritual walk that we compromise Your values.

Thought for the Day:

When we choose to enjoy the momentary pleasures of sin, we set our self up for the loss of God's blessings in our life; sin is ultimately destructive and always leads to disparaging times of injury for us. - Hebrews 11:25