God’s Eternal Love for Us

 

God loves us with His everlasting Agape love; and He draws us to Himself by His unfailing love and kindness (Jeremiah 31:3). God is love (1 John 4:7-10). It is part of His character (1 John 4:8; 2 Corinthians 13:11). God’s love is a free, sovereign, absolute gift that knows no bounds (Jeremiah 31:3; Deuteronomy 7:8, 10:15).

 

His love abides in us (Zephaniah 3:17), and is great, unfailing, unconditional, everlasting, steadfast and so much more. He gives us His love so that we can love Him and the people whom He brings into our life. Regardless of our differences in upbringing, philosophy of life, goals and ambitions, world view and pursuits, we can unconditionally love everyone He brings into our life.

 

We do not meet any strangers, just new friends. These people will all add to our life, challenge our beliefs, share new experiences with us, support us and at times tear us down; but God has a reason for them to cross our path, and sometimes only He knows this purpose.

 

God loves Jesus as His first born, and His only begotten Son (John 15:9, 17:26). God’s Spirit conceived Jesus in Mary’s womb, which makes Jesus both God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). Jesus abides in God’s love (John 15:10). God’s desire is for His Trinity to abide in us, as His representatives in this world. 

 

God’s love may feel restrictive at first, until we come to realize it is actually protective and freeing. He constrains us by His great and unfailing love to keep us on the straight and narrow road of life, in order to shield us from the devastation of the wide road of destruction (Ephesians 2:4; Isaiah 49:15-16; Hosea 11:4). 

 

He has a special love for the impoverished and downtrodden (Deuteronomy 10:18). We do not earn God’s love, and we cannot be good enough for Him to love us any more than He already does. He showers us with all of His love even while we are still sinners (Job 7:17; John 3:16-17; Romans 5:8; Titus 3:4). 

 

Prayer: 

Father God, You love us as Your adopted Children (1 John 3:1) with a special love of a Father and friend (John 16:27, 17:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:16; 1 John 4:16). You especially feel proud of us when we are a cheerful giver to the poor, to Your ministries, and to the broken lives all around us (2 Corinthians 9:7). Thank You for sending Christ to earth, and for giving us Jesus to pay our sin debt in our place (1 John 4:9-10; Titus 3:4-7; John 3:16).

 

Your love and grace are manifested by Your forgiveness of our sins, and in Your redemption of our spirit, soul and eventually our body (Ephesians 2:4-5; Isaiah 38:17; 43:3-4, 63:9). Thank You for continuing to draw us ever closer to Your presence within us (Hosea 11:4), and for Your continual blessings for us both on this earth and for all eternity (Deuteronomy 7:13).

 

Thought for the Day:

God liberally broadcasts His love in our heart by His Holy Spirit, and He defeats Satan’s attempt to thwart His purposes in our life by using discipline with us, and spiritual authority over the devil

- Romans 5:5; Hebrews 12:6; Deuteronomy 23:5

 

The Sculpture of Our Life

 

Our Daddy God thoroughly enjoys hanging out with us. This time of prayer never needs to cease (1 Thessalonians 5:17). During our day, we do not have to do all of the talking to God, or kneel in His presence. We can listen, worship, and rest in companionable silence with our amazing Father as we go about fulfilling His plans for us all day long. 

 

God loves for us to list His victories in our life, to thank Him for all of His benefits, and to bless His holy name (Psalm 103:1-2). In fact, God gave the Israelites special names for the times He intervened in their history. 

 

He wanted them to celebrate His deliverance every year at the same time that the seed for His miracle bore fruit in each situation. We can do the same thing by keeping a diary or a calendar specifically dedicated to God’s milestones in our life. We focus on God’s provision, His character, His generosity and the fact that He cherishes His place in our life.

 

Remember Enoch? He and God were so close and intimate that one day God just took Enoch home with Him – body, soul and spirit. He never went through death into eternity. As Born Again Believers, we can look forward to this eternal home as well. Our last breath on earth is followed by our next breath in our celestial home.

 

God wants us to pass along His milestones in our life to our children. As my children were growing up, I used to keep a yearly calendar of all the times that God came through for our family. I do not know if they even remember my attempts to build all of us into faithful children of God, but I planted a seed there if nothing else.

 

One thing that the Israeli festivals had in common is that they were celebrations with food, friends, family, sharing the facts of God’s intervention for them, and a time of rest from their labors in order to celebrate and worship our Heavenly Father with their whole heart (Revelation 14:13; Matthew 22:37). 

 

Eliminating time-consuming “busy work” from our life will give us more occasions to celebrate God’s involvement and intervention for us. We focus on intentionally spending more time with God’s Trinity within us – increasing both our intimacy with Him and our knowledge of His ways and will for us.

 

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for all the ways that You intervene in our life in order to improve our peace and joy and union with You. Help us to incorporate more times into our daily schedule to sit in Your presence, to praise Your holy name, and to bring our concerns to You rather than worrying about them needlessly (Matthew 6:27). Teach us to be still and to honor You as our God (Psalm 46:10). 

 

Help us to find Your divine rest for our spirit, our soul and our body. Strengthen our inner being (Ephesians 3:16) to be able to resist the urge to win the approval of others by taking on too many ministries and opportunities to advance in our human pursuits. We want to focus on our spiritual maturity instead, and to enjoy intimate times in Your presence within us.

 

Thought for the Day:

As we sculpt time out in our day to enter God’s rest, we start to recognize the beautiful figure that God is carving out of our life; we begin to see the anointed tapestry that He is weaving from His point of view, rather than from the back side, that is filled with knots and changing colors; this spiritual view fills us with joy as it also drains away all of our stress and striving. 

 

 

His Heart is Our Home

 

 

In this world, which often frightens us, we have a hard time feeling safe, secure, peaceful and free from worries on all sorts of topics. We try to remain positive, but Satan fills our mind with negative anxieties, in hopes of debilitating us and ending our fruitfulness for God’s Kingdom.

 

Fear is a potent emotional response to an imagined or very real threat. It intensely effects our spirit, soul and body. God intended fear to protect us by motivating us to use caution, and to accelerate our adrenalin for a jolt of energy during emergency situations.

 

A problem arises with fear when it sidetracks our thoughts and controls our life. This may cause a lack of appetite, or sleep, or concentration, or vocation or social life, or educational opportunities, or our enjoyment of life. It may also affect our health and mental wellbeing.

 

We may fear natural disasters, health pandemics, hidden tumors in our body, failure of the function of some bodily function, etc. There are other issues that cause fear to rise up within us, such as public speaking, taking a test, asking someone out on a date, our child’s participation in some potentially dangerous activity, etc.

 

Fear, anxiety, worry and other negative emotions cause us to take shallow breaths, our heart rate to increase, acid to sour our stomach, perspiration to break out on our body, our muscles to tense or to weaken, our imagination to run wild, our mood to darken, sleep to escape us, etc.

 

The remedy for fear is multifaceted. We start by identifying our fear and what is causing it, as well as sorting out the problems contributing to this emotion. We dissect these issues and look for a resolution for them. If we cannot resolve the problems, we can make a commitment to go ahead with what God’s Spirit is leading us to do, in spite of feeling afraid.

 

God will strengthen us to do His will, and He will hold us up with His strong hand of righteousness (Isaiah 41:10). He will come to us in our plight to see us through every trial; therefore, we can be strong and reject fear (Isaiah 35:4, 43:1; Joshua 1:9; Psalm 34:4). Jesus gives us His peace within us that surpasses anything this world has to offer to us (John 14:27; Matthew 6:34).

 

Prayer:

Father God, we live in a mixed up and chaotic culture right now, with threats all around us; yet, we have no need to be afraid, to worry, or to allow anxiety to overwhelm us, because You are with us wherever we go (Joshua 1:9; Isaiah 41:10). Thank You for giving us Your power, love, and stable mind to strengthen us during frightful circumstances. We want to enter Your rest now and to abide there always.

 

We give You our individual struggles and challenges, and we seek Your wisdom on how to navigate them successfully. You calm our emotions, give us clarity in our thoughts, lead us by Your Spirit, and comfort us with Your Word. Thank You for showering us with love, joy, peace, patience, comfort and wisdom during our troubling times.  

 

Thought for the Day:

The Lord is our light, salvation, and stronghold, and we can put all of our anxieties into His faithful care; therefore, neither life, death, angels, demons, supernatural powers, current or future trials, or any other created presence can separate us from God’s love in Christ; so we have no need to fear anything that mankind can do to us.

-      1 Peter 5:6-7; Romans 8:38-39; Psalm 27:1

 

A Good Marriage - The Perfect Partner

 

 

It is hard to live alone sometimes, and we often long to find a soul mate to share our life with; yet choosing hastily or unwisely can make us even lonelier than we are as a single person. Does this potential mate love God more than he/she loves you? Does he/she love you more than they love him/her self? These are important questions to answer before marriage.

 

Other questions are: do they enjoy spending time with you? Do they cherish your relationship more than any other part of their life? Do they share your Christian principles? If you can say “yes” to these questions, then feel free to say “yes” to a proposal of marriage. If any of the answers is “no,” then just remain as friends and give yourself room to date other people.

 

There are also small personal habits that irritate us during the dating stage that will grow into huge mountains once we are married. We can either change our focus about them and learn to cherish them, or we can give our self time to date other people. 

 

Does our potential mate support us and help us to reach the goals that we feel the Holy Spirit directing us to reach, and can we support him/her and help them to succeed in their efforts to obey God’s Spirit? Make time to chat about this as a couple and to hear new ideas from the Spirit through couple prayer time.

 

What words or behavior do you or your spouse use that hinders you or your loved one from feeling successful in this life? Converse about how to change these habits to be an encourager instead. We do not neglect our self and our needs, but we prefer one another (Romans 12:10). Pampering one another makes us truly feel secure, loved and cherished.

 

Prayer:

Father God, teach us ways to make our spouse feel secure and cherished in our love for them. Remind us that simple consideration, appreciation, thoughtfulness, random acts of kindness, fully listening when our mate converses with us rather than allowing our mind to wander or interrupting them when they talk to us, sharing personal and intimate time with each other, serving in a ministry together, snuggling some part of every day, etc. all help us to stay in love as the years of our union march past.

 

Point out to us how You see our spouse and help us to focus on those qualities when he/she does something to hurt us or to disappoint us. Strengthen our inner being to resist the appeal of the flesh, the lies of the world, and the destructive deception of satanic forces that filter through our mind. We love You alone, and we thank You for our spouse.

 

Thought for the Day:

Prayer for Us and Our Spouse –

“Father God, I pray for my spouse today, that they will have the mind of Christ and think as the Holy Spirit would lead him/her and not the flesh. (1 Corinthians 2:16)

That You will keep our thoughts and eyes from temptation, and that we will turn our eyes from sin and RUN from temptation (Matthew 6:13; Mark 9:47). 

Cause us to make wise eating choices and to avoid those foods that instigate poor health and other issues. Keep us in health physically, spiritually, financially, mentally, and emotionally,

Help us to hear Your still small voice instructing us, and only be led by Your Spirit. (1 Kings 19:12, Psalm 32:8). That our actions, thoughts and words will always be pleasing to You (Psalm 19:14).

Keep the sights and decisions that turn our head to honor You in ALL regards, and keep us holy, safe and healthy; that we will continue as a man and woman of integrity, discipline and perseverance in Your holiness and calling on our life (Psalm 25:12). In Jesus’ name and for Your glory. Amen

The Usefulness of Anger

 

 

Anger is usually viewed as negative and destructive. It can be, and it often is used that way. Yet, God’s Word makes it clear that God gave us anger for positive reasons (Ephesians 4:26):

1.  It helps us to defend our self in a crisis.

2.  It takes away many of the “masks” we hide behind, and it allows us to honestly communicate how we really feel.

3.  It gives us the adrenalin to run away to safety or to stand our ground and fight with supernatural strength.

 

We often use anger to protect our self, even from imagined slights and aggression. Yet, as a negative emotion, it is given to us by God for very specific purposes. He never meant for us to store it inside, to use it indiscriminately, or to vent it out on our self or on other people in harmful ways.

 

This is because there are destructive results of anger as well. Anger turned inward, or suppressed in our subconscious mind, will eventually poison our body, soul and spirit. Anger causes us to blame others for our own shortcomings, to puff up our self-righteous attitude, and to rip others to shreds at the least provocation. 

 

Anger at others is often linked to anger at our self too. We continually reproach our self with unkind words and criticism – many of these words which others used on us as well. The intensity of our anger may even grow stronger over the years into a secret hatred or disapproval of our self and others. 

 

Anger at our self erodes our self-esteem and causes us to doubt our abilities in certain areas as it diminishes the triumphs that we should be celebrating. Listening to the thoughts in our mind that accompany feelings of anger is very helpful in discerning why the emotion is in us. 

 

Are we reproaching our self, bitter toward someone who hurt us, drowning in hopelessness, sinking into a melancholy attitude, etc.? As we allow our self the “luxury” of fully feeling the underlying negative emotions that are actually causing our anger, we help our body and soul to affirm our true feelings, which allows them to decrease and for anger to dissipate.

 

Prayer:

Father God, Your Word cautions us not to allow negative emotions to seethe in our soul overnight (Ephesians 4:26). You teach us that our mind is the battle ground between Your Holy Spirit and our fleshly desires, as well as demonic influences and lies. Remind us that, even overnight, a small slight can turn into a mighty mountain that makes it impossible for us to move on in our journey into Your perfection.

 

Anger is an intimidating roadblock that prevents us from allowing Your Spirit to sanctify our soul in that particular area. We may be attempting to deal with our issues with our human understanding, rather than waiting on You to draw us out of the pit of destruction and to set our feet on the Rock of Jesus Christ (Psalm 40:1-2). Thank You that Jesus is our firm foundation upon which to trust our life. We look to You to help us to heal from the wounds causing our anger.

 

Thought for the Day:

Anger may cause us to adopt a critical and disapproving attitude toward our self, as well as certain other people in our life, which is way out of a reasonable proportion; instead, we can heed the advice of God’s Word and not allow hatred to grow in our heart toward our self or others, and to resist the urge to bear a grudge or avenge behavior perpetrated upon us; we can also learn from God’s Spirit to forgive, to love others, and to love our self as Jesus loves us.

-  Leviticus 19:17-18; 1 Corinthians 13:4-5

 

 

  

 

 

Pursuing God

 

The world sets a standard for us to chase after: power, fame, vocational success, continual physical attractiveness, financial abundance, etc. While God encourages us to pursue goals such as the fruit of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23): love, joy, peace, patience, humility, grace, compassion, gentleness, faith, and self-control. 

 

These characteristics allow us to move further away from sinful, carnal, and fleshly desires, and to have a more effective and spiritually productive life each moment of our day. The world becomes more self-centered, but authentic Christians become more Christ-centered, purer, and more intimate with God in union within us (2 Peter 1:5-9).

 

The more we surrender our life to the Lord, the less time and energy we spend seeking after the physical aspects of life. We rely on God’s Spirit to perfect us from one stage of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). We enter God’s rest (Hebrews 4:3), and we care less and less about the politics, fashion styles, trinkets and pursuits of those living around us. 

 

Of course, we do make a difference for God in ways that we can, but we do not worry or fret about the direction the world around us is heading. We share the Gospel of Christ with anyone humble enough to listen, and we wipe the dust off our feet (Matthew 10:14) when we walk away from someone with indifference or animosity toward God.

 

We rely on God’s Spirit to help us to enter God’s rest (Hebrew 4:9-16), to trust God to give us the desire and the ability to pursue holiness (Philippians 2:12-13; Romans 6:11-14), and to live an abundant life blessed by the gifts that God continually showers on His Saints. 

 

Prayer:

Father God, help us to see the relevance to our life that Christ-like attributes have, which worldly values lack. Once we stop striving to achieve worldly success, and instead work toward a more fulfilling life in the very center of Your will for us, we enter Your rest and experience a much deeper intimacy with You. You make us one with You through Christ in us. 

 

We are Your temple, Your Body, Your home, Your sanctuary, and You rejoice over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). We find so much peace in our life when we have fewer material possessions to care about. We value our mate, our family, our church family, and our time and energy to pursue You and to furthering Your Kingdom on this earth.

 

Thought for the Day:

We find more fulfilling fellowship with fellow Believers by all of us pursuing God together through being transformed in mind and character by His Holy Spirit each moment of our day; the esteem of the world around us holds no value to us at all, because being pleasing in the sight of the Lord is our major goal and pursuit.

A Good Marriage - Different Needs and Expectations

 

 

A marriage is the union of two unique human beings with both common and divergent needs and expectations. This allows for growth and compromise between the two individuals. However, sometimes, power struggles, disappointments, unmet needs, growing frustration and bitterness, etc. erode our feelings of love for one another.

 

Contentment at home, support from our family, making adjustments in order to get along, and unconditional love from our spouse are ideal ingredients in a good marriage. We learn to pray and worship and serve God together. We seek God’s will for our relationship when we disagree, and we stop expecting others to meet our needs.

 

Unexpected trials can disrupt the most intimate of relationships: financial, vocational, emotional, physical, children, overly busy or conflicting schedules, a widening gap in worldviews, changes in priorities, and other issues all put a strain on the closest of couples. Conflicts arise that seem overwhelming. 

 

The marriage may dissolve into angry conflict, criticism, a lack of compassion, life-shaking disappointments, and insurmountable disagreements. Doubting their love and decision to marry is the natural outcome of these negative reactions. Some people mistakenly look outside of their marriage for solace and emotional support.

 

Growing together in a loving union is the goal of marriage, but this takes humility, compromise, obedience to God’s Spirit, ridding our soul of negative feelings by journaling or counseling, preferring one another, looking for ways to bless each other, and to spend time conversing and snuggling and chatting every day will all help us to combat the frustrations caused by our circumstances.

 

Prayer:

Father God, help us to do our best to increase our unity with our mate, rather than to give up and dwell together in a miserable position of survival, or to initiate divorce in the hope of finding an improved marriage with another person. Remind us that unity in marriage takes effort for our whole lifetime. 

 

Of course, the longer we are married, the more involved and invested we become in each other, and the more patience we learn to exhibit toward one another. Trusting You for Your fruit in our life will allow us to follow Your will for us in our relationship. Remind us not to neglect each other by filling our life with our own interests and pursuits. We trust in You with our whole heart in every situation (Proverbs 3:5-6).

 

Thought for the Day:

We improve our relationship by:

·      spending quiet times together to relate to one another and to converse about issues that are bothering us, as well as blessings that occurred during our day; 

·      brainstorming to find a third solution to problems and unifying in order to overcome daily challenges; 

·      growing together in spiritual maturity and ministry; 

·      laughing often and enjoying each other’s company; 

·      patiently tolerating each other’s idiosyncrasies;

·      encouraging one another’s strengths;

·      praying for God to change both of us in order to meld us as a couple; 

·      daily snuggling and being romantic toward each other; 

·      etc.