Getting Through Each Day

Some days can be harder than others, but what keeps us going through it?  Is it our will power, drive or something bigger than ourselves?  "Our humility springs from our preparedness to say 'O Lord, I am totally dependent upon you today.'" [Alistair Begg]  "While there are no guarantees of surefootedness in the physical sense, there is One who stands ready to assist us in our quest to honor Christ in this life and prepare us to stand joyfully before Him in the next." (odb.org)

Underneath the restless surface
Of each trial that comes in life
Flows the Savior’s love and power—
They can calm our inner strife. —D. De Haan

What is sustaining grace?

Sustaining grace is the power to keep on going when you feel like giving up. It’s the power to do the right thing, when you don’t feel like doing the right thing. There are many pitfalls in the marathon race of life. But regardless of what you go through, no matter what you face this year, you can count on God’s sustaining grace. “My purpose in writing is to encourage you and assure you that what you are experiencing is truly part of God’s grace for you. Stand firm in this grace” (1 Peter 5:12).

"Every day we face temptations (and even false teachings) that seek to divert us, confuse us, and entangle us. Yet, it’s not ultimately through our own efforts that we remain on our feet as we walk in this world. How assuring to know that when we hold our peace when tempted to speak angrily, to opt for honesty over deceit, to choose love over hate, or to select truth over error—we experience God’s power to keep us standing (Jude 1:24). And when we appear approved before God when Christ returns, the praise that we offer now for His sustaining grace will echo throughout eternity (v. 25)." (odb.org)

As for myself, I may seem strong but I'm also human with depressed thoughts and moments at different times.  I, too, need encouraging quotes like, “t is I, your Savior, who has brought this experience into your life to show you [that] this is the kind of person—with all your sinful thoughts and temptations which you thought were things of the past—that you always will be, but for My grace.”  It is by His sustaining grace and new mercies each day that I can face and get through each day.  Galatians 5:25 says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."  

The Holy Spirit provides  the grace that meets us at our point of need and equips us with courage, wisdom, and strength.  Sustaining grace promises not the absence of struggle but the presence of God.  I know I need that kind of love from God.

Though tempted and sadly discouraged,
My soul to this refuge will flee
And rest in this blessed assurance:
"My grace is sufficient for thee."

Known For What?

What do you want to be known for now or after you've passed on? 

Is it your earthly accomplishments, your wealth, your fame, your philanthropy, your success, your family, or your faith?   

"From God’s perspective it’s not our resumé or the amount of money we’ve accumulated that matters but rather the kind of life we have lived."

I think it's sad when loved ones scramble at the end of a loved one's life to know what to say at their funeral.  Your life should be representative of something, and it is good or bad.  The dash [-] is the symbol of your life on your tombstone, so make it stand for something more than time passed.  

The average human gets around 25 thousand days on this earth. That's it. This life is a breath. Heaven is coming fast, and we live in that thin space where faith and obedience have relevance. We have this one life to offer; there is NO second chance, no plan B. We get one shot at living to expand the kingdom, fighting for justice. We will stand before Jesus once, and none of our luxuries will accompany us. We'll have one moment to say, "This is how I lived".

As for myself and what inspired this blog, my parents and I went to eat dinner at IHOP last Friday night.  As we were leaving, a lady in the restaurant said "I know you, Angie!"   With a puzzled look on my face, I said "Really??'  She turned out to be a friend of my friend, Beth.  She knew me because of my blog and complimented me on it and my faith.  Wow!  Yes, please know me now and forever as the daughter of the King and his strength that helped me overcome this world and its struggles.

"You are not defined by anything that happened to you or anything you've done. You are defined by who you are in Christ. (Beth Moore)

"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” Proverbs 22:1.

"All of us are writing a story with our lives—one that affects others now and in the future. Are we living to please God? We don’t know when the Lord will call us Home. Let’s live every day with an eye on the harvest." [odb.org]

Only the truth that in life we have spoken,
Only the seed that on earth we have sown;
These shall pass onward when we are forgotten,
Fruits of the harvest and what we have done. —Bonar

A fruitful harvest requires a faithful life.

O keep up your courage, each day to the end;
Go forth in the strength of the Lord;
Trust wholly in Jesus, thy Savior and Friend,
And feed on His own blessed Word. —Miles

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Peace in the Valleys of Life

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).  

Today's blog is about having personal peace within ourselves despite the chaos and circumstances around us.  Each of us have either come out of a hard valley or are in the midst of one or are about to face one and don't know it yet.  Life has it's moments of mountain tops, but we don't live there continuously.  The steep climb or descent is not an easy journey for any of us.  God sent the Holy Spirit to live within us, as believers, and be our guide during these difficult times.  John 14:16-17 says,  "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."

In the verse above John 14:27, "He wasn’t saying that all their conditions would be serene, easy, and comfortable. On the contrary, He was telling them they would have peace of mind and heart even though their circumstances were painful, difficult, and uncertain. And this is the same kind of peace Jesus promises to all of us who belong to Him." [intouch.org] 

As believers, we can have peace by knowing and trusting in God's control and that He is working things out for our good.

True peace comes from having a relationship with Jesus, a togetherness or oneness with him.  Any other source of peace is faulty, fraudulent, counterfeit and not everlasting.  If you don't have Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will never have peace.  You will have fear, doubt, anxiety, needless worry, and uncertainty.  We are called to be followers of the Prince of Peace, Jesus. 

As followers, we are not to just enjoy the gift of peace but to be peacemakers in the world around us.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me,”  Psalm 23:4.   That verse resonates the kind of peace God wants to give to us.  Even tho, we may be in the worst situation of our life, we trust God to carry us through it, even death.  These valleys of life  are often a metaphor for difficult times, times of darkness, despair, defeat, or discouragement.

3 Things to Remember About the Valleys of Life [R.Warren]

1. Valleys are a part of life. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 11:11, “The land you will soon take over is a land of hills and valleys” (NLT).Valleys are inevitable.  You can’t avoid valleys. Instead, you can count on them. 

2. Valleys happen to everybody. They’re impartial. Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. We’re in a fallen and broken world, so we have problems. Nobody’s immune. Nobody’s insulated from pain. Nobody sails through life problem free.“The good man does not escape all troubles—he has them too. But the Lord helps him in each and every one” (Psalm 34:19 TLB).

3. Valleys are unpredictable. You can’t plan them. You can’t time them. Problems typically catch you off guard. In fact, your valleys and your problems come usually at the worst time—when you don’t have time, when you’re unprepared, and when it’s inconvenient. Proverbs 27:1 says, “Don’t brag about tomorrow, since you don’t know what the day will bring forth” (NLT).

   As for myself, I am on the upward climb out of my valley and headed to the mountaintop.  I can tell you the view gets better everyday as I make progress.  My recent valley, my fall, made me only look up to the heavens.  The Bible talks of being pulled up out of the miry pit and I definitely was.  The valley is not a place to dwell with your negative thoughts or your weakened body, but a place to draw close to God and gain strength from Him.  Valleys are a place to strengthen your faith and trust in Him, not yourself.

   “If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us” (Chronicles 20:9).

Loved By God

  “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep." -John 10:14-15

“Sheep are essentially defenseless animals, so a shepherd uses a few tools to care for and protect his sheep. He uses a rod for guarding and protecting and a staff with a little crook in it to rescue the sheep.  We are like lost sheep, so Jesus came to Earth to be our Good Shepherd." 

This blog is about how much God loves us, cares for us, directs our paths, protects us and never forsakes us.  Below are some resources I've found to show us His love by examples and use of scriptures.

“Every once and a while, a ewe will give birth to a lamb and reject it. There are many reasons she may do this. If the lamb is returned to the ewe, the mother may even kick the poor animal away. Once an ewe rejects one of her lambs, she will never change her mind.
These little lambs will hang their heads so low that it looks like something is wrong with its neck. Their spirit is broken. These lambs are called “bummer lambs.” Unless the shepherd intervenes, that lamb will die, rejected and alone.
So, do you know what the shepherd does? He takes that rejected little one into his home, hand-feeds it and keep it warm by the fire. He will wrap it up with blankets and hold it to his chest so the bummer can hear his heartbeat. Once the lamb is strong enough, the shepherd will place it back in the field with the rest of the flock. But that sheep never forgets how the shepherd cared for him when his mother rejected him.
When the shepherd calls for the flock, guess who runs to him first? That is right, the bummer sheep. He knows his voice intimately. It is not that the bummer lamb is loved more, it just knows intimately the one who loves it. It's not that it is loved more, it just believes it because it has experienced that love one on one.
So many of us are bummer lambs, rejected and broken. But He is the good Shepherd. He cares for our every need and holds us close to His heart so we can hear His heart beat. We may be broken but we are deeply loved by the Shepherd." (Sheila Walsh, "Loved Back To Life.)

5 Ways God Wants to Protect You and Direct You by Rick Warren

1. If you bring your hurts to him, Jesus is compassionate.

Jesus has compassion on us, because he knows that we are helpless without him (Matthew 9:36). He doesn’t put you down; he lifts you up. He doesn’t hassle you; he heals you.

“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28 ESV).

2. If you follow him, Jesus leads you in the right direction.

The Shepherd goes before. He leads from the front and calls you forward. Jesus is not going to push you through life. He’s going to say, “Watch how I do it. Look where I go.”

“When he has led out all of his sheep, he walks in front of them, and they follow, because they know his voice” (John 10:4 CEV).

3. If you get confused or wander away, Jesus will find you and bring you back.

When God brings you back from wandering away from him, he will not punish you, but he may discipline you. If a shepherd has a sheep that is prone to wander, he will often wrap that sheep’s leg so it can’t move. In the same way, sometimes God gives us a limp to keep us from wandering.

“If a man has a hundred sheep but one of the sheep gets lost, he will leave the other ninety-nine on the hill and go to look for the lost sheep” (Matthew 18:12 NCV).

4. If you fail or fall, Jesus rescues you and sets you on the road to recovery.

Like all sheep, we not only wander, but we also stumble. When we trust that God is going to restore us and rescue us when we fail, we’ll faithfully run to him every time we mess up.

“If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not rescue it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!” (Matthew 12:11-12 NIV).

5. If you trust him to save you, Jesus will keep his promise to do just that.

It’s not your job to save yourself. Your job is simply to put your hand in God’s and say, “God, I’m all yours—the good, the bad, the ugly.” God loves you too much to ever let you go.

“My Father gave my sheep to me. He is greater than all, and no person can steal my sheep out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:29 NCV).

The goodness of God means he’s going to guide you, guard you, protect you, direct you, and save you. No one else can offer you those five benefits. They only come from Jesus, our Good Shepherd.

Overcoming the Scars

Last week's blog talked about where our help comes from, which is Jesus Christ.  I want to continue this week with how we must not let the world and it's sin, harshness, hurts, cold heartedness, and manipulative ways change us from the path God intends.  

1 John 4:4 reminds us as believers, whose we are and where to put our faith in Him and not false gods or witnesses..."You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."  Also in 1 John 5:3-5, "In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."

TobyMac has a new song with lyrics that describes the point of this blog well: 

"It doesn't matter who you are, this world's gonna leave some battle scars."   Can we not all relate to the following?  "When life cuts so deep, try and remember..You, you're are not alone, We've all been there.  Scars come with livin',  You, you're not alone.  We've all been there, oh, so lift your head, lift your head, to where your help comes from, you're not alone.”

Yes, it's true, we all have both physical and emotional scars from living in this world.  God knew this and that's why He gave us assurance by saying in John 16:32-33, " “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

3 Things We Can Live With As Christians, God's Chosen People (J.D. Greear)

1. Assurance:  Salvation begins in God, it is accomplished by God and what God starts He will finish.  He chose us before there was anything good in us.  He is more committed to our salvation than we are.  John 6:37-39,  "All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me,but raise them up at the last day."

2. Hope: We can bravely face all of our trials, because God works all things for good for those who believe in Him.  We don't see the big picture, but God does and controls it.  God will one day turn our messy threads of life into a beautiful masterpiece for His glory.  Romans 8:18  " I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

3. Boldness in Evangelism: God has revealed to us that it is our job to share Christ with others, and not discriminate with who we think is 'elected.'  Obedience to share the gospel with others is all that is required.

   Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.
   1 Chronicles 28:20