Just believe

Greetings:
Sometimes just finding five minutes for God seems like a chore. Sometimes devotions do not really seem like devotion but work.
Sometimes our faith does grow weak because our time with God is not where it needs to be. During times of doubt, we can feel that it is difficult to have faith.
Where is God in our difficulty?
How can we increase our faith when we see no evidence for it?
God’s Word remains the solid rock that we need when we're surrounded in this world by sin, trouble, and doubt. God's Word provides an armor of protection and helps our faith weapons to grow in size, caliber, and fire-power.
Is God still God in the hard times just like He is in the good times?
Hard times are exactly that — hard.  But how we approach those hard periods in our lives determines whether we’ll just survive, thrive or sink altogether.
Fear is the believer's greatest enemy. When a believer has fear, he cannot have believing faith.
Fear paralyzes, frustrates and cripples us into indecision and no action. Fear involves torment as in 1 John 4:18 where it states, “Fear is the prison of the heart.”
Trusting God in hard times requires refusing to be frightened, refusing to be immobilized, refusing to panic and learning to stand firm on God's Word.
The times in my life when the biggest storms struck, it was by faith and trusting God that I emerged.
God didn't promise us smooth sailing, but he did promise to be with us at all times.
Faith is not a gimmick. Faith is not found within the will, sight and understanding of our human mind.
Have the faith of a little child and just believe.
Be blessed.

God is enough

Greetings:
Life has knocked me down on the seat of my pants and stepped on me more than a few times.
I've seen and experienced things I didn't want to ever see or feel.
I have experienced many sorrows and personal failures.
But I don't feel sad about it. I am glad and rejoice that the God I serve is more than able.
God is able to lift us up when we can't do it ourselves.
God is able to encourage us when all we see is darkness and no hope.
God is able to open doors where there are no doors.
God was able when I was running the other way and making poor choices to reach down and touch me.
God's love never abandoned me, faltered or failed.
God's mercy enabled me to get back up.
God has been there for me, even when I wasn't there for him.
I remember the lessons learned and the love felt from God.
In 1 Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul says, "I believed in God, and so I speak. We know that the same God who raised our Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself along with you. All of these things are for your benefit. And as God's grace brings more and more people to Christ, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.”
To get perspective, we need to step back from the problems at hand and see them in light of history, our experiences, and who God really is.
Always remember, God is able.
Be blessed.

When we are weak, He is strong

Greetings:
Have you ever felt weak, rundown and tired in your faith?
Can a person be weak and still be strong?
Those two questions are answered by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 where he writes: “Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
I don't have the answer to why bad things happen to seemingly good people, but they do.
The problems in our life are often blessings in disguise. We must learn to view them from this spiritual point of view.
The greater the burden placed upon us, the greater the faith required to “hang-in-there.”
It takes faith to continue living for God when things turn for the worse in our life. It's easy to be happy and praises God when everything is going great, but the true test is to continue your walk and increase your faith in a time of trouble or burden.
A popular athletic locker room motivational slogan is “No pain, no gain.” That could be our Christian slogan as well.
Exercising of our faith and the trials that go with it will make us more mature and stable in the Lord if we will be patient and not give up.
I don't know of one Christian who is invincible. We do get knocked down.
The key is to always get back up off the ground, brush the dust off, and do what you can to get back on track for God.
Proverb 24:16 (NLT) says: “The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.  But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.”
Remember, unshakable faith comes from having your faith shaken.
Be blessed.

Let God open your eyes to see

Greetings:
One of the keys of growing in our Christian walk is having a teachable spirit.
As we delve deeper into God's Word and begin to understand what is said our mind and past religious teachings can sometimes get in the way of our comprehension.
Often in my early years of being a Christian, I can recall saying to myself 'that's not the way I was taught'.
That's where we call on the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and open our hearts to understand God's truths and the light that connects our mind with our soul is turned on.
Proverbs 9:9 says, “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.”
The benefits of having a heart that is open to instruction are exemplified throughout the Bible.
David was a man who sought to do God’s will.
Psalm 25:4 says, “Show me your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.”
David was repeatedly calling out to God asking for his guidance and instruction.
“Lead me in your truth, and teach me: for you are the God of my salvation; on you do I wait all the day,” David says in Psalm 25:5.
Psalm 86:11, he calls on God and says, “Teach me your way, O LORD; I will walk in your truth: unite my heart to fear your name.”
In David’s words, we learn of the relationship between being teachable and following God. When we ask the Lord to teach us, we must accompany our request with a heart and desire to do His will. As we seek to know God’s will, we must understand that the process of discerning God’s will for our lives requires us to learn from him. It is imperative to have a teachable spirit.
It is tempting to try doing God’s will in our own wisdom and with our own strength, instead of trying to figure everything out in our heads.
Spending time studying  God’s Word is essential to our growth in Christ. Simply reading the Bible won’t do the trick.  We must approach God’s Word with a teachable heart and a willing spirit and ask God to open our eyes to his great things with understanding and comprehension of what it all means.
Be blessed.

Be courageous

Greetings:
Having Christian courage is key to our daily walk with The Lord. God promises to help us, guide us, protect us and be with us, but still, we fear and lack courage at times.
Many Christians are dying daily at the hands of terrorist and unbelievers throughout the world for their steadfast commitment and love of Christ.
The pain may we experience as a Christian may be mental as in confrontation and controversy.
Courage is indispensable for both spreading and preserving the truth of Christ. It's been that way for decades.
Matthew 24:9 (Amplified Bible), Jesus promised that spreading the gospel would meet with resistance.
It reads: “Then they will hand you over to suffer affliction and tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”
Therefore, true evangelism and true teaching of The Word takes courage.
Do we tell only the truths that are safe to tell?
Nobody respects a coward. We admire people who are courageous.
Some of us can remember when we were still a kid in school and someone would dare us to do something dangerous. Some of us probably did some of the stupidest, most dangerous life-threatening things we've ever done. Why? So that we wouldn’t be labeled with that dreaded word 'chicken'.
We wanted to come off in the eyes of our peers as courageous, not as a coward.
In our Christian walk, every one of us faces choices every day in which we come out either courageous or a coward. It takes a great deal of courage to face the daily challenges of life without becoming considered weak.
It takes enormous courage to be a Christian when most unbelieving people automatically despise you when you openly reveal that you are a person of faith in Jesus Christ.
The mainstream media in America hates Christians with a passion because of a divide in moral standard and they punish them, belittle them, and try to discredit them at every opportunity.
But, it's doesn't matter what they say, or what they write about us as Christians. God knows our heart and he will get us through it all.
Be courageous in what you think, say and do.
Be blessed.

Let the joy of The Lord shine

Greetings:
I am sure many of you know someone, or maybe it's you, who seem to be seeking something that appears to be difficult to attain. It can be even harder to maintain without God.
I am talking about the pursuit of happiness or  joy.
The Constitution of our blessed nation talks about 'the pursuit of happiness'.
I believe that's what everyone is after – being truly  joyful.  Some have confused temporary fun with this kind of happiness.  The devil can be fun for a while, but he won't make you happy or give you real joy.
The reason for living for God after you get saved or 'born again' is the joy of our eternal salvation.
In Philippians 4:4 (NLT) it says,  “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again - rejoice!"
Nehemiah 8:10 tells us, “. . . the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
So if you want to be stronger - be happy. When you are weak and weary - be happy.
Every one of us has lost our joy at one time or another.  When we get joyful God will move on us and through us.  When we thankful we are joyful. When we are joyful we are thankful.
You can't drink joy out of a bottle, take a pill for it, or shoot it in a vain. You can't buy joy. It has to come from your heart and soul.
There are other joys in life, but if you and God aren't on good speaking terms, everything else is vanity. 'Things' are temporary, short lived, and disappointing.
The only thing that makes some people happy is having money and obtaining a lot of things. You know, a lot of material stuff that gets old, stops working, gets rusty and worn out.
When that happens they we want to throw it away and buy new stuff. Get close to God and all of that stuff really doesn't matter in the big picture of things.
If you don't have a tightly fastened connection with God, and His joy, all these other things will fail. 
God says for each of us to get our joy back, and then we will be see what kind of good and lasting things will come our way.
Be blessed.

Try a little kindness

Greetings:
When you think of kindness, what does that mean to you?
Is kindness a bag full of fresh garden vegetables taken to a friend or even a complete stranger?
Is kindness an encouraging note sent by a friend?
Is kindness a caring shoulder to cry on?
Is kindness bowl full of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven delivered from a friend?
Is kindness a telephone call just to say 'hello and how are you doing'?
Is kindness greeting someone on the street with a smile?
Kindness gives a person a warm fuzzy feeling, it just does.
No wonder it's one of the fruits of the Spirit.
Read Galatians 5:22-23 and see that kindness is there in the list of fruits that we should cultivate in our orchard of life.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
When we're kind, others get to experience that warmth, and whether they realize it or not they are also experiencing some of God's own character.
When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
Kindness is understanding.
Kindness is compassion towards others when we have nothing to gain.
Be kind today in some way, reach out, see and act on the needs of others above our own wants.
Be blessed.