LOOK FOR THE HELPERS
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers -- so many caring people in this world. -- Fred Rogers
those depending on Christ’s goodness as their own—will journey through dark passages, seasons of trial and tribulation. But they will discover that down in the jaws of deep, God will speak once more Let there be light...
We overcome the devil by loving others more than we love ourselves. John says that the world will know that we are Christians by the way we love each other. Are you willing to lay down your life for others? That's true love. When we truly love each other and show each other the same love that Jesus has shown us, the devil has to leave the building--he can't stand in the presence of Godly love.
In a time where the world seems to have collectively lost its mind, our hearts and minds are protected with a peace that surpasses all understanding. That phrase, “surpasses all understanding”, means that when the world has no peace and is in a constant state of anxiety and fear, our hearts and minds are supernaturally protected and encased within God’s peace.
"The fruit of the Spirit wasn't intended to be a list of goals for us to produce - it is the Holy Spirit through us who produces fruit." — Dan Kimball
"God is too good to be unkind, and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart." — Charles Spurgeon
The new covenant of grace by which we relate to God is designed to bring us a growing, intimate knowledge of our Lord. However, this growing in knowing God requires that He reveals Himself to us. This is why Paul prayed for other believers to this end: " Making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him."
God wants us to move forward, looking upward. "I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." The goal is to get to know the Lord better. We are to press toward that goal, exerting all of the spiritual strength and energy that God's grace supplies.
If we haven’t put on the belt of truth, then all other pieces of spiritual armor will become somewhat irrelevant. We will be worthless and immobilized. Duplicity and hypocrisy weaken our witness to a watching world. We need the belt of truth. We need integrity before God.
When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we join God’s army, so to speak. We’re no longer civilians; we’re under the command of the captain of our salvation, Jesus Christ. Of course, we have given up certain privileges, but we have gained far more.
The opposite of integrity is duplicity. Duplicity is hypocrisy.
Champions understand that God uses every trial to build our strength and endurance.
TRIALS ARE THE ULTIMATE STRENGTH-TRAINING EXERCISE
Don’t be of little faith! Believe!
May we all find comfort in the poetry of God's great love for us! Remember that God the Father delights in you and sings over you (Zephaniah 3:17).
The purpose is not that you might get more of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit might get more of you. ~Chuck Smith~
St. Augustine wrote, “The harmony between the single and the double...has been naturally so implanted in us (by whom indeed, if not by Him who created us?) that not even the illiterate can remain unaware of it.”
The Law was given "so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
You don’t have to go to heathen lands today to find false gods. America is full of them. Whatever you love more than God is your idol. ~D. L. Moody~
change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God,” writes Dan Allender and Tremper Longman in The Cry of the Soul.
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