“God’s pursuit of you is always greater than your ability to wander away from him.”
Thank Him for this daily.
God, if you’ve gotta drag me back, then please do so. I am terrified of wandering away because I do and I’m so weak. But You are strong and won’t allow me to stay lost. Help me stay close to You, but when I stray… prove this quote with all Your might!!
“Everyone that is close to the Lord, the enemy attacks.”
The enemy attacks with hatred. Satan wants to make us suffer if we draw close to God, as a vitriolic vengeance against his Creator, who he refuses to submit to and wants no one to submit to. Hence all the wiles and schemes to get people to rebel through sin, just like every devil did and does.
Stand strong in the faith. Satan is forever at war with God, and this world is the battlefield, and you will be wounded as long as you’re on the heavenly side of it. That’s nothing to worry about though. Christ was wounded more than anyone, and He now lives eternally! The devil cannot separate you from Christ, no matter how he tries, no matter how much you may bleed at his hateful hands. God is still victorious, and Christ is still at your side. So smile and endure with a peaceful, patient heart. You wouldn’t be a target if you weren’t marked for heaven.
“Are they not therefore foolish who, for momentary delights, bind themselves to so many perpetual evils?”
— St. Gregory
Every sin has consequences. Sin itself has the ultimate consequence of death. Sinful behavior rebels against God’s will and God’s love, and in choosing to sin– even if such behavior is “enjoyable” for a brief time– means choosing to distance ourselves ever further from God.
Sins add up. Every single one is a new link in the chain of worldly bondage. Break the chain! Forsake the momentary and choose the true– sacrifice delight and gain joy! Choose Christ and His perpetual Good– the only other option is endless wickedness.
“Even Death and Destruction hold no secrets from the Lord . How much more does he know the human heart!”
— Proverbs 15:11
This is so profound, and equally humbling. We humans don’t understand death and destruction at all. We theorize about it constantly– we study it, probe it, analyze it; we invent stories and myths about it, we are haunted by its dark reality. And yet God fully comprehends them both. We can’t even imagine! So indeed, how much more does He understand the baffling paradoxes of our hearts– how completely He understands our most confusing thoughts and complex feelings, our most troubling struggles and overwhelming concerns! All the dark places of our souls, all the shadows within us that terrify us… God knows it all, and He comprehends it.
This truth alone should motivate us all to seek His help all the more ardently in our daily trials. When we feel utterly lost and helpless, surrounded by death and destruction inside and out… then let us turn to God. He understands what’s going on, and He knows how to manage it, and He knows how to get through it, and if we ask Him, He will lovingly help us to do so.
'Commit this sin, and confess it afterwards.' Behold the deceitful artifice by which the devil has brought so many thousands of Christians to hell.
-Saint Alphonsus Liguori
To sin with the intention to confess later actually corrupts the conscience– it fools the heart into thinking that sin has no consequences. But confession is nullified by such brazen thoughts. Confessing is only valid, and therefore only followed by absolution, if the confessor is truly sorry for their sin, and vows firmly to amend their life. In other words, contrition and conversion are mandatory aspects of Reconciliation. If you confess a sin and intend to commit it again, your confession becomes void. Similarly, if you willingly sin and use the possibility of confession as an excuse, or a “free pass,” you not only commit a sacrilege against the Sacrament, but you also numb and harden your own soul.
Don’t ever do anything that you even might have to confess after. Let that be your true litmus test– “if I do this, will I have to confess it?” If yes, then don’t do it; no excuses!! And don’t ever try to justify your sins. There IS no justification for sin to begin with! All sin deserves death; that’s the very nature of sin. You cannot alter that. The only justification any of us sinners can ever hope to have comes through Jesus Christ– and to willingly sin, once we know this fact, is a damnable offense.
Be careful!! Resist the devil, and stand strong in your faith!
Repentance is less about confessing how horrible you are and more about confessing how glorious Christ is.
Sean Smith
This wording is tricky. Yes, we ARE “horrible,” in that we’re all hopeless sinners without God. But there’s the light– with God, we have hope! And such is repentance. When we recognize that God is not only just, but merciful, and in His love He calls us TO repent, not out of self-loathing but out of love for Him, and sorrow for acting against love… then our repentance changes from “I’m a horrible person, I can’t stand myself, I have to change my ways or else” to “I’ve done horrible things but God still forgives me; I want to live in grateful honor of Him now.”
Repentance can only stick if it’s motivated by love of God, and driven by hope in Him. Otherwise it is just an empty striving against self-hatred.
enchantedsuggest:
no one is ever too broken to recover. whatever’s hurting you, depression, anxiety, trauma, eating disorders, rejection, you are never a lost cause, and you deserve to feel happy, and you can get there someday.
As someone struggling with all of those things, I really needed this hope tonight. Thank you.
I’m not a lost cause. God has kept me alive thus far; He will restore my soul as He sees fit. If anything is damaging my soul, hurting my heart, keeping me from Him… He will get rid of it. He will fix me in a way that glorifies Him. That’s all that matters and that’s all I want.
I’ve been broken but God can put me back together
better. He can fill the fractures with gold. Someday, I hope He will deliver me from this mental illness hell. I pray He will. But until then let Him be my only strength. Perhaps that is the purpose of the waiting. Humility, trust, and compassion. So I pray for the grace to carry this cross in a way that glorifies Him. I will keep praying.
yourbigsisnissi:
When we sin it doesn’t stop God from loving us. But sin does disrupt the relationship we have with God. So when you’re making the choice to sin or not, it’s not about whether or not God will hate you for it. It’s really about whether the choice to sin is more important than your relationship with God.
God hates the sin, not you. But sin pushes you away from Him. The very act of sinning turns our minds and hearts away from God, in focus and priority and worship, in every case. God will always love us and perpetually calls us to repent and return to Him, but sin deafens us, blinds us, numbs us by it’s very nature. You can feel it, literally, and it is both sickening and utterly terrifying.
So for heavens sakes PLEASE look at the gravity of temptation like this! “When you’re making the choice to sin or not.” It really IS that black and white. Either you’re honoring God, or you’re dishonoring Him. Either you’re acting out of love for God, or you’re acting in rebellion against God. Either you’re being kind and respectful and forgiving towards your neighbor, or you are being cruel and disrespectful and half-hearted towards them. There are only ever two choices and you CAN boil down everything you do, in genuine honesty, to be serving either God or the world… to be humility or pride… to be obedience or sin.
“Is your choice to sin more important than your relationship with God?” Because it really does boil down to just that. It’s just that simple, just that huge. It’s the choice between heaven and hell, on a daily basis. Choose wisely. It adds up, and one day, that tally WILL determine your permanent fate. You can’t claim to love God and then constantly trash your relationship. You can’t be His child and yet refuse to obey Him as your Father. You cannot choose to serve the world and then want to live in God’s kingdom. You must marry one or the other, as it were.
God must be the most important thing in our lives, and our every choice must reflect this priority. Think of the terror of losing Him by choosing hell, and let that motivate you to resist the devil at every turn.
God loves you. Honor and embrace that relationship. Choose Him.
“My son, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline, and don’t be angry when He corrects you. The Lord corrects the one He loves, just as a father corrects a child He cares about.”
— Proverbs 3:11-12
When God disciplines you, He’s just telling you that He loves you too much to leave you with your own foolishness that will destroy you in the end.
This is why humility is required for holiness– to accept and apply the Lord’s discipline, we must be willing and able to admit that we’re fools. We make really foolish choices, we constantly end up tangled in the consequences of those choices, and inevitably we all find ourselves crying out to God, scared and helpless and ashamed and contrite, begging for mercy and deliverance, aware of and full of regret for our ignorance and folly.
All of that pain could have been avoided if we had just obeyed God in the first place.
That’s why He is, quite honestly, unflinchingly adamant and firm in His corrections. God knows how easily we fall, and how dangerous sin is, and how rampant temptation is. Satan is waging war against us, cruel and conniving. So God cannot afford to be lax in His discipline– just like training soldiers, that discipline will ultimately make the difference between life and death on the spiritual battlefield.
God loves you dearly. He is your Father, and you are His utterly beloved child. He will not take any chances with keeping you safe, and He will constantly look for ways to strengthen and instruct you in holiness, so that you continue to grow. We all start life as foolish children, but foolishness is not an inherently damning quality. It’s just a starting point. But we mustn’t stay there, or we’re easy targets for the devil and his attacks. We must move on from foolishness, and only God can show us the way… for as Scripture tells us, to fear the Lord– to honor and respect and rightly tremble at His unfathomable power and knowledge and love– is the first step on the way to wisdom.
God will free you from your fatal foolishness, if you let Him. So joyfully, gratefully accept and obey your corrections. The pain of regret lasts a lot longer than the pain of discipline, and brings only misery. But correction is a pruning of our souls, and in the end, it will make us radiant and thriving. Take heart; you are loved!!
i-walkbyfaith:
Indeed, God uses the brokenness of people to help someone in ways that they could not even imagine.
Today my struggle with mental illness had me in tears, as I feel it hinders me from doing so much for my church and my faith. I couldn’t imagine why God gave me this humiliating, frustrating, limiting cross. But He gave it. And I might never understand. All I’m called to do is live according to His Word and His Will as completely as I can, even if I am hindered in many ways. God will still use this brokenness for His glory, somehow, some way. I must have hope in that; I must be brave and persistent in faith. Otherwise despair will kill me.
God uses the broken and humble, not the proud and powerful. If my mental illness is able to make me what God wants me to be, then so be it. I’ll trust in Him. God just grant me the grace to turn to You in my weakness, always. Use me and my crosses for Your greater good, please. That’s all I’ll ever want.
Be real with God, even if it’s ugly. Lay it down at His feet.
Be real with God, ESPECIALLY if it’s ugly! He alone will not condemn you for your honesty in such an awful matter– instead, in your humble confession, in your surrender to His mercy, He will show you mercy.
God already knows. God knows it’s ugly and He knows it hurts and He knows you are ashamed and afraid and would rather deny that ugly thing than admit that it exists, so blatantly and regretfully, in your life. He knows, so don’t hide. Surrender, and you will find peace at last. Open up, show it to Him, and then let Him heal you of that ugliness, however He wishes to. Give it to God, don’t take it back, and watch Him work miracles in your life.
The sin that is most destructive in your life right now is the one you are most defensive about.
Tim Keller
We defend those sins because, in one way or another, we want to commit them. We fear letting them go– we fear living without them, fear the vast freedom Christ calls us to. We are so used to living in our little jails that we consider them ‘comfy’ and familiar…and forget how beautiful true life is outside of them– we forget that Christ is infinitely better.
The very act of defending a sin makes it the most destructive– because that means it has its hooks in our hearts, and it will eat us alive if we continue to keep it in such close company. Make the courageous choice to surrender, to NOT defend it, even just once– to instead admit you are afraid, and addicted, and weak, and in need of repentance and salvation– choose humility instead of pride, and watch the shackles begin to fall, by the grace of God.
koinohnia:
If you want to love Jesus, you have to stop degrading yourself and seeing yourself as some sexual object or tool for someone to want or use because you’re worth more than that. Jesus purchased you with His life, so that you could belong to only Him.
As someone recovering from years of nightmarish sexual sin, trauma, and toxicity, I need to be reminded of this constantly.
I am not an object, I am not a toy, I am not a pet or a plaything or a pleasure cruise. I am not a consumable object. I do not exist to entertain those who “love” me for what I can do for them.
I belong to Christ. I was created for Christ. I will live for Christ, and no one else. If I am worth anything, it is only through Christ… and He has called me to be His beloved child. That is more than the entire world can ever offer… and it also means I am worth more to God than I can ever imagine.
Jesus loves me, and sees the truth in me. If I want to truly love Him in return, I must accept His love for me, or else my sin-twisted feelings of unworthiness and self-hatred will push me away from Him… and will make me treat myself abusively in turn. Imagine how that hurts Him– He who died for love of me, to purge those terrors from me, to make me whole and wholly His own– to see me treating myself so unkindly! If I say I love Him, I must not hurt Him… and if I hurt someone He loves, it hurts Him terribly.
I am someone He loves.
Remember that always.
“Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there, but all of it is totally meaningful. Every millisecond of your pain from the fallen nature of fallen men, every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that. I don’t care if it was cancer or criticism. I don’t care if it was slander or sickness. It wasn’t meaningless. It’s doing something! It’s not meaningless! Of course you can’t see what it’s doing. Don’t look to what is seen. When your mom dies, when your kid dies, when you’ve got cancer at 40, when a car careens into the sidewalk and takes her out, don’t say, ‘That’s meaningless!’ It’s not. It’s working for you an eternal weight of glory. Therefore, therefore, do not lose heart. But take these truths and day by day focus on them. Preach them to yourself every morning. Get alone with God and preach his Word into your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for.”
— John Piper (via newlifepureheart)
So many people take offense to the truth that “everything happens for a reason,” but this quote expands upon that truth powerfully.
Everything that we experience in our lives comes from the will of God, either directly or through allowance. God is not directly responsible for the evil deeds of humans, but He does allow them the free will to choose evil… and then, He opens doors for His Glory to be proclaimed in beautiful victory over that evil. Good will always prevail in the end, for God is forever victorious. But to share in His victory now, we MUST face our sufferings with trust in God and His Good Purposes, or we will drown in confused blind despair.
In the end, all our mortal pains will be as dust in His hands. He will wipe our tears away and welcome us into the everlasting joy of His Kingdom, of His Presence. Trust Him now… for this is not the end of the story. Even if we don’t understand, we have faith in Him, and we use every experience to grow closer to Him until we finally meet Him face to face. Do not lose heart.
crownedbythelord:
Today I just realized again that all I need is God. No matter what happens, he is there to catch me. He is there - with his love, strength, peace, faithfulness, holiness - I can’t describe how beautiful it is to live in his presence. I can’t describe how thankful I am to have him and to belong to him. The moment I step out of his presence I am lost. But thank God, my shepherd always knows where to find me. I love you Jesus.
cheeryblueheart: Amen. I needed to Read this today. I don’t want to exist Outside of Christ.
I don’t ever want to exist outside of Christ, either… and by His Grace, I pray that I never ever will. Outside of Christ it is literally hell.
And that is the paradox of this life. Truly, we cannot exist outside of Christ– but in this fallen world, it can sure feel like we do. Sin distances us from Christ, giving us a real taste of Hell, and of its horrifying existential emptiness and terror. But when we have been burnt by sin’s flames, and chilled by sin’s desolation, we are blessed beyond comprehension to have, in this mortal life, the chance to turn around and run back Home… to step back into the Presence of God, of our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who is waiting for us with open arms of eternal love… and who, indeed, is always closer than we think, even in the depths of our misery.
No matter what happens, Jesus is there. He holds us close to His Heart, and we belong to Him forever. The Father gave us to Him and nothing can take us out of His arms. (John 10:29)
I, too, am grateful to the point of tears that God is always there, that I belong to Him, and that with Him I am never lost. He is all I have, all I could ever want, and all that I will ever need, forever.
“If God gives you a few more years, remember, it is not yours. Your time must honor God, your home must honor God, your activity must honor God, and everything you do must honor God.”
-A.W. Tozer
As someone in recovery from both serious trauma and serious sin, this is vitally important.
Everything I do must honor God. This is only right and just– He could have let me rot and die in my brazen sins. But He didn’t– He mercifully and powerfully saved me. Not only that, but I still haven’t died from my own stupidity, and that is due to His good grace alone. The simple fact that God has me held so completely in His hands, is astounding. I’m humbled and struck by holy fear. In recognition of that, there is only one thing I want… and that is, indeed, to praise and thank and honor Him, admitting my sinful frailty and begging for the mercy to continue to repent and serve Him.
God, give me the grace, for Your sake!!
"The devil attacks some people more and others less. We can never know how dramatic the situation in each person's heart may be... It's amazing how we can disguise our passions as virtues..."
We must never make excuses for our own sins. We must never try to justify our failings. We must never look at our struggles with sin and try to stick a proud label onto it. So we might not share a certain temptation or sinful inclination or weakness with our fellow in faith. So what? They do not share many of ours either. But we both struggle, and we are both sinners. There is no merit or praise to be had here. We cannot pretend that the devil’s decisions are any credit to us. He attacks us all– we have no right or reason to judge others based on the percieved manner or frequency of such warfare.
In short: be humble. Your neighbor is still fighting the devil. Have mercy. God forbid you condemn them for “being more tempted than you,” only to suddenly face more temptations than ever! Humble yourself or you will be humbled… and for the proud, the process will be humiliating.
inchrist: The hardest thing about living a Christian life isn’t going to church, praying, receiving the sacraments, or reading scripture. It’s learning to forgive those who made your life hell and dissolving the grudge you hold against them.
dragonpuppies: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” is one of those things a lot of Christians get told as a kid and never really think about, which is a shame because when you do think about it, it’s the most flooring, impossible, life-altering command.
caffeinatedcatholic: During my very first confession about a month before my confirmation, I told my priest about my grandfather, who was a protestant pastor and a pedophile who molested me all through my childhood, and about all the anger and sinful habits that resulted from it.
My confessor is such a kind a thoughtful priest and I love him, but the penance he gave me was the hardest I’ve ever ever done.
He told me to say 3 Our Fathers for my grandfather. My grandfather died shortly after I came forward about the abuse, of a heart attack. My priest said it doesn’t matter that he’s dead. It doesn’t matter that he’s probably in hell, it doesn’t matter where he is in the afterlife at all. Because my penance is for me, for my healing.
We don’t pray bc God needs to hear us say certain things, we don’t even pray for His benefit at all. It’s for ours. It’s for our healing, for our reconciliation, for us to draw our spirits close to His.
My priest told me, “Pray for him. Especially where the Our Father says, ‘And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.’ Your prayer won’t affect your grandfather, wherever he is, and it doesn’t need to. Your penance is for you, to help you let go and forgive.”
It took me an hour to say my penance. I was shaking with anger and fear and resentment, with the ache of longing to let it go. Especially since I spent a majority of my childhood praying and begging God to let him be in hell bc if he was somehow in heaven, I didn’t want to go.
And I finally did my penance and honestly nothing magical happened. It hurt a lot. I still try to pray for him and it still goes against everything in me. It’s a lot of work. But little by little I’m letting go, and it’s one less thing that I have to drag around with me every day.
Praying for your persecutors, your abusers, it’s freaking hard. And obviously not everyone is in the same situation as me and praying for your persecutors may actually also help them and be a turning point in their lives. Or it might not do anything for them. We dont know God’s will for their lives or the states of their hearts. But we know God wants us to give up our hate. Praying for your enemies will soften your heart, it makes you humble and lighter and kinder. Praying for your enemies is a conversion. Deny yourself.
This is such an important addition; thank you sincerely for sharing.
Our prayers and penance cannot change the past. Nor can it change the hearts of our enemies– only God can do that. But sincerely praying for them absolutely changes our hearts. It completely shifts the focus of our thoughts and emotions, rerouting us to humility and faith and mercy, instead of being stuck in lethal hardness and bitterness. God demands that His children strive to live in obedience to Him, and in honor to Him, and we cannot do either of those things by holding on to hatred.
“Praying for your enemies is a conversion.” We must remember this. God will heal our hearts, if we meet Him there. However long it takes, no word is wasted, if it springs from faith and humility.
And above all, remember Christ, who died for us while we were still absolutely degenerate sinners, so that we could be absolved and forgiven and restored to friendship with Him. Remember this, this love that He has for you AND your abuser, this great desire He has to save and absolve BOTH your souls. You cannot save your abuser, but Christ can, and your praying to forgive them is going to help your salvation too… because it is helping realign your heart to imitate Christ’s. We’ve all sinned, we all deserve just punishment, but Christ offers mercy. Remember this, and humbly pray for your enemies. See their souls as separate from their sins– forgiveness does not justify their behavior, but it does allow for the possibility of change, even if only in your mind, from a toxic person to a healthy one. See that hope, even if they are no longer alive. Pray for mercy for them. Pray for the grace to will the best for them. Pray as Christ wants us to pray– for God’s will to be done, but also to forgive and be forgiven in turn. And in all this, Christ will teach you to honestly love all. I’m sure.
I apologize if this is rambling. My heart is just moved very strongly about all this.
inchrist: The hardest thing about living a Christian life isn’t going to church, praying, receiving the sacraments, or reading scripture. It’s learning to forgive those who made your life hell and dissolving the grudge you hold against them.
dragonpuppies: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” is one of those things a lot of Christians get told as a kid and never really think about, which is a shame because when you do think about it, it’s the most flooring, impossible, life-altering command.
everlastinglyanna: And when you do it, despite how you might be burning on the inside or really don’t feel like it, God begins to change your heart. It’s beautiful. This helps us to obtain true charity. And get this, Proverbs 25:21-22 lets us know that if we serve our enemies or do good to them, it will be as heaping “coals of fire upon their head.” So not only does your heart begin to change, but apparently theirs does too!
I’ve been struggling with forgiving a very toxic friend lately– difficult because not only can she cannot comprehend or admit that she harmed me so devastatingly, but also because she afterward spitefully refused to even consider the thought and instead declared that she would perpetuate such behavior. I’ve never felt such bitter pain and regret and sorrow and rage in my entire life and it’s terrifying. Literally all I can do is pray. I still love my friend but I hate what she did and is doing and that hatred is suffocating me. All I can do is pray, that my heart be softened to genuine mercy and forgiveness… and that my friend and I both will be brought ever closer to God through contrition.
It really is difficult– it often feels frighteningly impossible. But God can do anything, including changing my heart to follow His command of divinely merciful love. And God, I do beg you for the grace.
“The most beautiful creed we pronounce is the one we pronounce in our hour of darkness.”
— Padre Pio (1887 – 1968)
When we are tested to our very limits, when the storms of life batter us to the brink, then the strength and foundation of our faith is revealed. The creed we pronounce when we have every reason to doubt and rage and abandon ship, the creed we steadfastly proclaim with the last ounce of hope in our heart… that is the one that carries diamonds, that holds the most graceful truth.
“Nothing is due to me. I am not a miracle worker. Left to my own devices, I can do nothing but sin.”
St. Pio of Pietrelcina
The fact that Saint Padre Pio said this is both shocking and humbly reassuring– as a sinner who is devastated by their own horrific iniquity, knowing that even the saints were well aware that “everything good in me comes from God alone” gives me hope. Left to my own devices I am an absolute abomination. But my weak and wrecked nature is not a solid sentence of hell, if only God’s grace intervenes on my behalf. Maybe one day I too can become a saint through God’s salvific and sovereign power. That gives me great hope. And so I pray.
Grace alone has preserved my life. Grace alone will keep me alive today. Grace alone will grant me a future. Everything, past present and future, is from God.
“We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. That is the end; there perpetual praising, there Alleluia always without fail.” —St. Augustine (Homily 10 on the First Epistle of John)
This most blessed and glorious hope moves me to tears and is often the only thing getting me through the day. In the end, in the gracious end, there is only God and love of Him, forever!
“When your body is injured, do you know what you body immediately does to heal itself? Blood aggressively moves towards the injury. Your body reveals the nature of God; wherever there is sin, here comes aggressive forgiveness of His Blood.”
— Pastor Judah Smith
This is such an eye-opening realization… it changes the way we look at sin. Sin is injury– it is soul damage! And without the Blood of Christ, it cannot heal. We need the blessedly aggressive forgiveness of Jesus’s atonement as much as we need literal blood in our veins… and our hearts need Him just as much.
Take heart; Jesus has overcome the world!
John 16:33
[We are often told that "The battle is over; the victory is won."] No, the WAR has already been won, but the BATTLES continue. This is how we participate in Christ’s victory. @strategic-social-media
Amen to this. Spiritual warfare is real and will continue until Christ’s return in final victory. But no matter how many battlefields we must brave in the meantime, God is triumphant over it all, and sin IS defeated… just outside of our personal time. Sin refuses to accept this fact and so it fights bitterly, rebelliously, vengefully. But have hope, have faith, and soldier on! Christ is with us– still and always. And He will continue to overcome this world, as long as it continues to oppose Him. Take heart!
I met God, Who slowly, painfully, and divinely pieced me back together.
Sin tore me to shreds, but God picked me up– powerfully, but gently. Putting me back together would take a great deal of time… understandably, considering how delicate and careful the process was (and is). To rush would have been not only disrespectful, but also disastrous. I am grateful for the mending, but I cannot deny the pain– sewing torn skin and soul, setting cracked bones and being, soothing shocked head and heart. I still ache; I still have flashbacks and nightmares, illness and sickness. But I am safe now. I am, through His divine love, whole now. No longer am I ripping out parts of my spirit and handing them out to greedy wolves who believed they were just “misunderstood sheep.” Their ravenous appetites swore otherwise. And my Shepherd knew the truth, and He found me, and He delivered me into the sanctuary of His arms… where I wish to remain for the rest of my life, all the more healed and happy and holy each morning.
I met God, who saved me from myself, and now I joyfully live for Him. All glory, honor, and praise be to The Lord!!
Believing the right things about Jesus isn’t enough. You’re not adopted as God’s child until you confess and turn away from your wrongdoing and receive the freely offered gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased with his death on the cross. Until you do that, you’ll always be on the outside looking in.
Lee Strobel
Always remember James 2:19… “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!” In this we realize, strikingly, that believing the truth does not mandate obedience to it, or even respect for it! Demons believe, but then they oppose– they attack, they rebel, they scorn, they desecrate. But they still quake in terror at the truth. That does not make them holy. Similarly, no amount of belief or acknowledgement of truth on our part can make us a child of God… for a child not only believes his parents, but obeys and respects and loves them also– with humility!! A good child knows he is not greater or wiser than his father and he honors that difference in wisdom. And so we do this by confessing our Father’s infinite wisdom and righteousness, confessing our own sinfulness and foolishness before Him, and gratefully accepting the salvation from such a state that ONLY God can give, and has given, through His Son. No devil will ever, or can ever, do any of those three steps. A demon has no honor of God, no humility of heart, and no salvation. So yes, you do well to believe… but you must live that belief, for faith without works is dead!
“The only really practical type of a rebellion is that which is also a repentance. All real reform springs from this sense of something wrong, not only in our surroundings, but in ourselves.”
— G.K. Chesterton
To rebel without repentance is to rebel in pride; it is an offensive act against something outside of us that we disagree with or detest, while maintaining our own “righteousness.” It is, in essence, a refusal to see oneself as blameworthy or mistaken. This is a dangerous act that fuels arrogance and sinful selfishness, and crushes the capacity for humility and spiritual growth.
However, to rebel with repentance is something I never even considered until now. It means that the disagreement and disgust is with ourselves– it means that the thing we wish to stand against and act in opposition to is in us, not just outside us– it means that we recognize that the roots of the illness in society spring from our own souls, not the other way around.
Rebellion of the virtuous sort therefore requires serious courage, as it first requires that we actively take a stand against our own selfish impulses. To see, admit, and then oppose our own sinful inclinations is mandatory for holiness but it is also very difficult– Scripture itself attests to this (Galatians 5:17)!
Ultimately I think we can best grasp the gravity of this distinction by reviewing the root definition of “rebellion”… which is “war waged against a government by some portion of its subjects.” Which spiritual government are you rebelling against? Are you rebelling against the gentle yoke of Christ, preferring the seductive snares of sin? Or are you rebelling against the heavy chains of the flesh, choosing instead to follow Christ to true freedom? You cannot serve two masters, but ultimately you will serve one.
Make sure your soul is being governed by God… and if it’s not? Then repent, rebel, and reform.
“If anything, let your pain be the passion for your prayer.”
— p.j. {1 Thessalonians 5:17}
Frequently, the pain is so overwhelming it makes formal prayer difficult, and this is both horrible and terrifying. So when it’s that bad, don’t despair! Pour out your heart to God in the pain, as the pain. If words aren’t possible, then speak in feelings. Ask the Holy Spirit to intercede for you, to give you the grace to pray somehow, so that your suffering never drives you away from God… even if all you can do is cling to His pierced feet and weep. Hold on to Him with every ounce of strength you have. This is prayer.
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We no longer suffer from “suffering” when we recognize and embrace it all as God’s loving will for us. This is one of the dearest, most beautiful blessings of God’s grace to us as His Children. ❤
Salvation - What is truly required?
lovechangeseverythang:
What won’t save you :
- how often you go to church / pray / read Scriptures
- your good works
- how “spiritual” or “religious” you are
- the faith of your family members / friends
What will save you :
- Romans 10:9-10, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Lets get the idea out of our heads that our religiosity is what saves us. It’s a bold statement, but I say it with full confidence: Jesus saves you, and that’s it. Everything else comes after, and is needed for spiritual growth, but like I said… it comes after! Don’t get caught up in trying to do this thing, or that thing, or be this person, or that person. Once He changes your heart, your desires change too, and TRUST ME, He will transform you into who you’re supposed to be if you let Him take over your life! Over time you’ll develop spiritual discipline that will lead you to pray, go to church, read Scriptures, carry out good works, etc. But those don’t save you, and our God is more concerned with your heart than all of those things!
Everything else comes after. That is such a powerful hope, such a joyful truth. I can attest to that with my whole heart. Jesus WILL transform you if you surrender to Him with love! It takes time but it’s beautiful time, even when it’s scary, even when it hurts, because through it all you know that it is ALL drawing you closer to Him. Obedience to God practically guarantees persecution and suffering in this world, but those trials are like dust compared to the ultimate end our obedience points to– life in Christ, forever.
And that’s what saves us… Christ’s love, Christ’s mercy, Christ’s power, Christ’s cross. He changes us and we no longer have to struggle in fear to “do good or else,” because once we life for Him, doing good is no longer a challenge of our weak wills, but it becomes a loving response to God’s love. Our good works bloom FROM our faith, as effortlessly as flowers, but requiring the same amount of time and effort, too. It’s a glorious paradox. But in the end, I must reiterate, those works are NOT what save us– they come after we are already saved, through faith in our Savior.
Faith makes Christ the new center of our lives, instead of the world. Spiritual growth comes from becoming part of the True Vine, from whom all good things flow. Prayer and fasting and sacrifice and all sorts of Christian activities will eventually become our joyful nature, not a hard decision. Have faith. God will change your heart to resemble His, more every day. He does all the hard work. All we have to do is truly believe in Him, through His Son, and the Spirit will carry us through the rest of this life, through happiness and horror, through peace and pain, until we reach the doors of death and meet our Father at last.
No matter what you do or don’t do, it won’t save you. Paradoxically, because Christ alone saves us, your works or lack thereof won’t damn you, either… because once you have faith, you will do works. It‘s the inevitable result of a changed heart. You’ll no longer worry about “being enough,” because Christ is enough, and living for Him becomes a fearless act of love, instead of a chore.
Faith comes first. Everything else comes after.
God says:
I closed off all easy roads leading to Me.
But I am reachable, if you're willing to go the extra mile.
Matthew 7:14. “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
God is always reachable, but we must prove our pure intentions in seeking Him out. No casually curious souls will be granted access. The road to God is difficult but this is a testament to His glory– only those willing to be made worthy through faithful endurance of its trials will make it through that extra mile.
But we can. God wants us to seek and find Him. And He rejoices in our steadfast pursuit of Him. So forget the easy roads– they may seem pleasant at first but they’re all dead ends. Choose the roughest road– the road of the Cross– for only that road leads to heaven.
alistairradley:
“You didn’t find Jesus, He found you. He wasn’t lost, you were.”
— Matt Chandler
You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you!
—Jesus
This is an important truth to humbly remember when we inevitably struggle in our faith lives. We may be terribly lost, unsure how to find God again, too weak to properly choose the right things… but God is seeking us always, choosing us again and again, giving us the Grace needed to live in Him anew every morning… if we admit that we are lost, weak, and confused. If we deny our state of lack and sin, we cannot be found, strengthened, corrected, or led.
But, if and when we remember that our salvation is of Christ and ONLY of Christ, by His will and power, and not by any speck of our own merit… then, in all grateful humility, we allow ourselves to be found… we allow ourselves to be chosen, and then, we can choose Him, too.
“AT THE END OF A DAY, I WANT PEOPLE TO THINK AND SAY, { MY HEART LOOKS LIKE YOURS JESUS.}”
Crowned with thorns of humility, pierced with a lance of persecution, and afire with love for humanity.
Seriously though. Our hearts must imitate both Christ’s love and His suffering, for the two are forever intertwined. His love was the most powerfully proved by His suffering, after all– that’s why we have the Cross!
Sometimes I don’t need to understand…
just trust in the Lord.
Trust creates peace.
We humans understand so little the way it is. How could we ever trust God if we demanded to understand Him first? By His very nature, He is unfathomable! His ways are infinitely above our ways. But His ways are also always good. So what does it matter if we don’t understand? We know the bottom line. God is trustworthy. So trust Him.
This, indeed, grants our hearts an equally unfathomable peace.
When a church changes their values to match current culture, they're no longer following the Bible, they're following the lost.
God never changes. His Word is whole and true for eternity. There is never any reason for His church to mutate itself to match a fickle, shifting, fading culture. We must instead stand strong as a bulwark of truth amidst the whirling winds of the world.
“A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue.”
— Proverbs 11:12
All our words should be edifying, honest, and merciful. True judgment is accompanied by compassion and humility. It does no good to deride anyone.
Christians are guilty of telling more lies to God on Sundays than on any other day. You know why? Because it is on Sundays that they sing so many hymns - such as, “All to Jesus I surrender”, “Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold”, etc.
You may sing those words because they’re in the hymnbook. But you don’t mean them. And you don’t realize that you’re speaking directly to God when you sing such hymns. Maybe you are more conscious of the tune than of the words. That’s when you tell lies to God.
Jesus said that we would have to give an account to God in the day of judgment for every careless word that we spoke (Matthew 12:36).
-Zac Poonen “God Centred Praying”
Especially in church, every single word we say must come from our heart in both frank sincerity and solemn awareness of the binding quality of words. If you say something mindlessly or automatically, where is the honor in your words? Where is their value?
I am a cantor at my church and I am often left in tears and trembling from what I sing in those hymns. God knows I mean every word, for His glory and for His love, and I pray with every breath that He grants me the grace I so dearly need to keep those promises and confessions.
But I am very aware how deadly a careless hymn is to the soul. It is just as lethal as hollow prayer, for hymns are indeed just prayers set to music– and in both, we must be fully and humbly aware of Who is listening. He knows your heart, and whether or not it is in your words. So be honest. Mean what you sing. And if you cannot sing with sincerity, then seriously pray about that. But don’t ever sing emptily.
I will be like a shepherd looking for his scattered flock. I will find my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day. (NLT) -Ezekiel 34:12
God considers each of His children to be a lost sheep. We are all prone to wandering away from Him, lured by the shallow enticements of the world, and ultimately ending up terribly lost, sometimes to the point of losing hope. But fear not! As one of His precious sheep, He will seek you out and find you to bring you back to His flock. Oh, how much He loves you, to ensure that you do not get lost along the way! You are too important for Him to overlook, and you should never doubt that. He is your Good Shepherd.
If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. (NLT) -Matthew 10:39
The emphasis here is not on losing your life and all of your possessions, but rather on turning your focus away from those possessions. We sometimes lose sight of the important things in life: such as strengthening the bond with your parents or mending wounds with friends. God calls us to love both our neighbors and our enemies, so by focusing on building Godly relationships, we honor Him. Maybe it has been a long time since you shared a special moment with your brothers or sisters, let alone a special moment with God. We become so busy in life that our priorities can be flipped upside down, and that is truly “losing” our life. Without God and neighbor taking priority over stuff and status, our lives will become living deaths. We must change our way of thinking and prioritize in a healthy and Godly way by putting God, our spouse, and our family first.
Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. (NLT) -Ephesians 3:17
When you place your faith in God and trust that His plans for you are better than you can imagine, Christ will send the Holy Spirit to you. Through prayer and daily reading of the Bible, a relationship will grow. This relationship is unlike any other, and it will sharpen you to constantly grow to be more like Christ. Stay rooted in God’s love, and focus on strengthening your loving relationship with Him daily.
“And suddenly I realized that every single thing in my life is fleeting, and that only God is eternal.”
sad and yet gloriously sweet realization…
“This too shall pass.” Every earthly joy and sorrow will fade. But if we anchor our lives on God, our true joy and true life, not even the passing away of this entire world will shake us, for our hope is in Heaven with the Lord of Eternity.
Even on my darkest and twistiest of days, God is still there. No matter how hollow my chest feels or how heavy my bones are, He is there always whispering encouragement.
“Keep pushing. I’m not done yet.”
God isn’t done with you, so never give up. Our strength isn’t what matters here– God’s strength is. So no matter how weak, helpless, tired, scared, or useless we may feel, that doesn’t matter– God will carry us through for His sake, by His will, and God is unstoppable. If we cling to Him in obedient faith and ardent hope, we will share in the joy of His victory over death in our lives, by the grace of Christ.
Keep pushing– God will give you the strength. He isn’t done, so don’t be afraid. Until the very end and beyond, He is with you… and in this loving trust, not even the end can scare you.
Don't forget God when you get what you prayed for.
God isn’t a vending machine! God is the CREATOR, the Giver and Maker of All! When He gives you what you pray for, it is because He wills it, and He is glorified in the giving– God owns all things and gives them to His children as He chooses. So humbly remember this when you receive such gifts. Thank Him for His generous goodness, and His loving mercy in answering you so!
pray even when the waters are calm
especially when the waters are calm
When the waters are calm, we can see all the way to the bottom. There are a lot of terrible things hiding down there, trust me. Just because they aren’t moving right now doesn’t mean they’re out of the picture. One day again they shall turn the seas into a maelstrom. So when the waters are calm, it’s the best time to reflect on just how much we have been delivered from, and just how blessed we are to have hope in Christ, who alone calms the waters, no matter how severe the storm.
Pray then, pray now, pray always. Prayer is praise and love and wonder and awe and humility and sorrow and pleading and gratitude. Prayer is the heart speaking to God in any and all circumstances. Pray in tough times, pray in tranquil times. Never stop, because you always need it… for you always need God.
Do what makes you happy holy.
Holiness is true happiness-- and we will never be happy if we are not striving to be holy first!
"Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face."
-Ronald Reagan
The bottom line:
put God first in all things. Obey and honor Him as your first priority– the answers you seek will naturally follow.
"It is not a matter of time so much as a matter of heart; if you have the heart to pray, you will find the time."
-Charles Spurgeon
Time is a sacrifice too, and a precious one– we never know if this is our final hour. And yet, blessed irony, this truth of temporality should move us all the more strongly to offer every moment to God!
Furthermore, we give our time most naturally to what we love… to what our hearts deem worthy of attention, of worship. If God does not hold the highest place– nay, the only place– on that list, you must fix your priorities. If you truly love God above all else, you will make time for Him, even in your most potent stress, even in your most heavy fatigue, even in the face of death.
If you have the heart to pray, no excuse will ever prevent you from praying.
"Blessed, however, are those who’ve managed to simplify their life and become liberated from the web of this world’s development of numerous conveniences (i.e. many inconveniences), and were released from the frightening stress of our present age."
-St Paisios of Mount Athos
This present age is a tangled knot of useless stressors indeed. We are born with nothing and we die with nothing. God is all that matters.
“A fool vents all his feelings, But a wise man holds them back.”
— Proverbs 29:11 (nkjv)
Feelings are temporary and transient. They flare up and die down as quickly and chaotically as a flame. Venting them as they roar by is foolish indeed– wisdom lies in silence, in patient discretion. We must calmly assess our feelings for truth and propriety, before we give words to any of them.
“Good sense and discretion make a man slow to anger, And it is his honor and glory to overlook a transgression or an offense without seeking revenge and harboring resentment.”
— Proverbs 19:11 (AMP)
God is merciful to us; let us then be merciful to all our brethren.
If there is to be any vengeance, it is God’s, never ours. We are to forgive in humble compassion, to pray for the souls of those who offend us, and to seek their good. Resentment will rot our hearts. Both good sense and holiness quench the harmful heat of anger. Always choose what will bring honor to Christ.
thewordfortheday:
Jesus understands that our flesh is contaminated by sin and extremely weak when it comes to spiritual things. But He tells us to seek His strength so that we may live for Him and not succumb to our flesh. Knowing that our flesh is not able to do what our spirit desires, Jesus encourages us to pray –
“Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation.” (Matthew 26:41) Each of us has certain areas where we are more vulnerable to temptation and susceptible to sin. Jesus tells us that we should always be alert to the possibility of satan’s temptation, especially in these areas. Jesus also encourages us to pray, bringing our needs and weaknesses “specifically” before the throne of God in order to receive His help.
“Our flesh is not able to do what our spirit desires.” This is the shocking, humbling truth. This is why we must be vigilant in prayer, for we are at perpetual risk for temptation and sin, as weak as we are. But God will help us for His glory and in His love.
Also, remember the emphasis on “specifically.” The most powerful intercession is given to the most radical honesty & surrender. When you’re struggling, tell God the details– lay your heart bare. Yes, He already knows, but what faith and trust and humility it grows in you to confess it to Him so directly, so totally!
The challenge of our faith is not our inability to hear God’s voice, but rather our willingness to entertain other voices
Bill Johnson
Too many other voices are talking over Christ’s Word in our hearts; in our world we are bombarded by chatter and noise. We must constantly endeavor to listen to God all the more closely, and fill all our senses with Him, to overpower the cacophony of the world.
justcallmebishop:
Its fascinating to me just how possible it is to know God, yet how committed I can be to only learn more about myself.
In knowing God more, we come to truly know ourselves more, too… after all, what meaning is there to life and self without God? All self-reflection born from proud curiosity and self-worship is bound to collapse emptily in the end. I can gravely attest to this. The only self-knowledge worth anything is the knowledge of who we are in Christ, who we are to God, and who we can and will become through God’s salvific grace.
Read your Bible. Pray without ceasing. Make knowledge of God your truest commitment. This will ultimately also teach you more about yourself than anything else ever can.
justcallmebishop:
It’s the new Christian fad to see maps everywhere, in churches and in homes, because every Christian wants to reach the nation’s, but so painfully few want to reach their neighbors.
Thinking “globally” can become so abstract, that it takes the feeling of urgency away from evangelization and charity both. But when your starving, struggling, sin-wracked neighbors are next door, or in your own family, the call to do God’s work becomes more urgent than ever– and you can’t hang up that divine call without willful ignorance.
It’s a staggering reality, to see that we are surrounded right now by people in desperate need of God, and we can’t rely on any corporation, celebrity, or community outreach to do the hard work for us, whereas globally we can make a donation or mission trip or prayer group and feel “accomplished.” But although it is good to give this sort of national help, it is far better– and I daresay more Christian– to do the humble hidden work here at home.
Talk to your neighbors about Christ. Talk to your family. Care for the sick, elderly, disabled, and lonely in your hometown, on your street. Cook meals, run errands, care for children and pets, assist with bills, even just visit someone who needs the comfort of a fellow soul. Do all of these things and more for God’s sake– because you love Him, and you love His children. If you call yourself a Christian, your life must honor His life. Do as He would do, and help those who need your help, personally.
Those that forever seek the Word of God are overrun by those who do It.
-Reinhard Bonnke
Seek God’s will, but when you find it– and you WILL, for God promises this– do it!
We can all too easily “pretend” we don’t know God’s will if we’re afraid to obey it, or if we don’t understand it. But His will is right there in Scripture. It’s engraved upon our hearts. It’s given in response to honest prayer. Deep down, whenever we ask in faith, we WILL receive in faith. The important bit is acting on it with the same amount of faith and trust.
Seek His will, find His will, and do His will. There are always three steps. If you don’t do it, then you disobey it. There is no other option. Remember this.
hisprincess:
Stop taking your eyes off of Christ. Without Him you’ll end up in the exact place you keep telling yourself you don’t want to be.
Reminder to self.
Think of the world as a raging sea, and think of your life as a boat out in the storm. Now think of Christ as a lighthouse– as a lodestar, as the sole guiding brilliance of your ship, the sole hope of safety, the sole signpost of survival and salvation from the wild tempests. That is how dearly you should value Christ– as your only hope; as THE only hope! Fix your eyes on His light just as unflinchingly as a sailor in such a storm would fix his eyes on the beacon proclaiming safe shores. Without Christ, you will not only become desperately lost– you will also die out there, in the merciless maelstrom.
You don’t want to be lost at sea. So keep your eyes on Christ, and follow Him.
“We are all one in sin, one in failure, one in hopelessness, one in need of the Lord Jesus Christ and His great salvation.”
— Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Jesus is the One for Everyone.
Remember this:
there are no exceptions. Every person on this earth has sinned, and cannot save themselves. But Christ has opened the Way
to every person, too. Have mercy on your brethren, and walk with them together to His Cross of Salvation!
“God seeks churches and households that love the lost, not love the blessing God bestows on them for reaching the lost. God seeks those who sacrificially give for the advance of the gospel because Jesus is worth it, not because Jesus will make it worth it.”
— Dick Brogden
If Jesus is not enough motivation for you to sacrifice, then you need to seriously examine your heart as a Christian. If you’re “in it” for temporal blessings, your heart is in the wrong place. Love the lost because God loves them, and because you love God, and because He quite honestly commanded that we love all our fellow humans– all our fellow creations of God, all our fellow souls in need of salvation.
Jesus Christ alone– love and glory and praise of Him– is enough motivation to make the most generous sacrifices. Everything is
already worth it, if it’s for Him.
koinohnia:
Jesus was nailed to the cross so His love could pierce your hard heart to make it soft.
The mental imagery of this alone can shatter a heart of stone.
Reflect on this profound suffering love whenever sin hardens your heart. Let the nails pierce you through. Let love break you open so that grace can enter in again.
Trust God in the tunnel, and He will lead you into Light.
God
never leads us into dead ends. Every path we take through faith in Him ultimately leads
to Him. So if following Him leads you somewhere dark and dreary, remember that it’s only a temporary thing… there’s an exit somewhere, sometime. Even if that exit is the end of your life, do not fear! If you’re following God, you’ll
reach Him in the end. Trust Him in the meantime, no matter what.
Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace, and work to maintain it. (NLT) -Psalms 34:14
God wants us to live peaceful lives. God hates the insecurity and fear evil brings to our lives. Thus, a part of being a Christ follower is being a peace seeker- for following Him brings true peace. Make a list of how you can be an agent of peace in your community. Do you feel moved to make amends with neighbors? Co-workers? Family members? Maybe you feel called to speak against a particular injustice? It could be that you are nudged to finally are agree to volunteer in your local church. Rest assured that Christ has placed these peaceful nudges into your heart for His sake and the sake of His Kingdom. Make steps to be a peacemaker today!
"If we could only see the joy of our guardian angel when he sees us fighting temptations."
- St. John Vianney.
This is a powerful love-driven motivator.
Love is really the only motivation for good. Remember this in your struggles. Without love, you’re stuck. With love, you’re already free.
preparation-and-acceleration:
Father, please show me whenever I am not thinking in ways that will cultivate my heart for You so I can unroot that mindset
Show me, and then please, give me the grace TO unroot those thought processes. I cannot do it myself. Only You can. So please, God… show me Your will, and enable me to do it, for Your sake.
“I am profoundly grateful to God that He did not grant me certain things for which I asked, and that He shut certain doors in my face.”
— Martin Lloyd Jones
God’s will is always better than ours, for His knowledge, wisdom, and purity is always infinitely greater than ours.
If God shuts a door, rejoice. If He denies a request, rejoice. He knows what He’s doing. You are being protected and guided by His powerful hand. Then, with grateful humility, obey His rerouting.
My worth is found in Christ and only in Christ.
No matter what the world says about you, good or bad, in the end Christ is all that matters, and all that is worth anything. If you cling to Him, no earthly abandonment or demonic lies can shake you. Without Christ, though– without God– is there anything worthwhile? No. Everything outside of Him will pass away and come to naught. But Christ died to conquer death, to make us worthy who believe in Him. No amount of money, fame, power, possessions, praises, or prizes can do that. But if God calls you worthy through His Son, then nothing on earth can take that away from you. Hold on to that joyful hope.
“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.” (NLT) -Luke 11:9
The power of persistent prayer is incredible. Strength rises up in your voice as you continuously seek God’s answer to your prayers. This persistence proves that you are not seeking instant gratification, that you trust that God hears you and will respond in His divine timing, and that you both realize and trust in the power and importance of honest prayer itself. Rest assured that, no matter how long it may take to see an answer, God will always answer: through fulfillment of your prayer, a firm “no,” or by guiding your heart in a different direction, causing you to no longer seek the answer to that prayer. God always hears us, especially in the silence that moves our hearts. Go ahead and pray a specific prayer daily, and wait faithfully for His response.
The use of many words in prayer is helpful, if only because our consciousness is in this way fixed upon the holy words for a longer time. Even if we are not completely absorbed in the meaning of the words we utter, but only diverted from trifles, from vain agitation, worry, impure thoughts - even that is a great gain. And if we add to this a vivid sense of no more than one hundredth of what we read, the soul acquires countless treasures.
-Diary of a Russian Priest
Prayer is always a great benefit to the soul. This emphasis on the holy focus of lengthy prayer is very important to remember. It is indeed far better to devote our spare time to prayer than to trifles, and claiming “it’s hard to concentrate” or the like is no excuse in light of this truth… and that is joyfully encouraging! No prayer is ever wasted. No effort is ever lost. So pray– pray always, and never be discouraged!
You don't need a reason to help people.
But you’ve got one nevertheless: John 15:12, and Luke 10:36-37!
koinohnia:
koinohnia:
Remember, Shadrach, Meshasch, and Abednego. God didn’t put out the fire. He just put Jesus in there with them and they came out without smoke. It’s not about God stopping all the things that look bad; it’s about who is in there with you... God didn’t put the fire out nor did they need it to be put out. They believed God would deliver them but were content in giving their lives to honor the word and kindness of God if He had not. And that’s amazing. Amazing grace.
realjoyismine: Remember this: those boys didn’t know that they’d be saved out of the fire. They were ready to die for the Lord. That is what they told King Nebachadnezzar. The outcome? They didn’t care. They just stood for what was right: honoring and glorifying God at all costs.
This was my favorite Bible story as a child. It still is.
They didn’t need the fire to be put out because that wasn’t the point– they only cared about glorifying God, even if that meant dying for His sake.
That truth, that faith, still pierces me to the core. God, I pray that my own faith may be so unflinchingly steadfast, for love of You!!
Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.
J.I. Packer, Knowing God
No matter how long or short our life is, knowing and serving God is all that matters. Making that our top priority will inevitably cause all our other cares and concerns to find their proper place in service to it. Everything that doesn’t serve God must go.
It’s a blissful courageous streamlining of life that honestly makes life under any circumstances worth living, because when our earthly life is for God, we can rest assured that we will have a life with Him after this one is over. And all else is dust in comparison.
Paul learned to be content with what he had. Which is remarkable since he had so little. He had a jail cell instead of a house. He had four walls instead of the mission field. He had chains instead of jewelry, a guard instead of a wife. How could he be so content? Simple. He focused on a different list.
He had eternal life. He had the love of God. He had forgiveness of sins. He had the surety of salvation. He had Christ, and Christ was enough. What he had in Christ was greater than what he didn't have in life.
God, present in His Son, is always enough.
This life is temporary… the life to come is eternal. Saint Paul knew that true joy and contentment come from fixing our hearts on the latter. No matter what we have or don’t have here… in the end, in eternity, what truly matters is having God… and we do have Him in Christ. When our hearts genuinely know this, all else is as dust in comparison to that blessed joy.
syney: Some Christians have a hard time praying because they don’t think it works for them.
God says that if we ask and do not receive, it is because we ask with the wrong motives; for personal pleasure. He also says that if we ask according to His will, He will hear us. So if he hears us - whatevever we ask - we can know that we have what we have asked of Him.
The first step is changing our motives. The next step is faith.
everlastinglyanna: This is good! Prayer is vitally important. How you pray matters. Luke 18 is one of my favorite examples of how to pray.
If we’re not praying, how will we ever know what God requires of us? How will we know what he has to say concerning our issues or the things we go through daily? More importantly, how do we expect God to move for us or to develop a relationship with him if we don’t talk to him? Men ought to always pray & not faint.
And if he doesn’t answer right then and there, just wait. Waiting is not just to sit down as if you’re in a waiting room, but you continue to seek Him until he gives you the answer. Continue to work unto Him! To wait, by definition, is to look forward expectantly. To be ready and available. It may not happen right now, but be expectant, be ready!
Isaiah 59:1 lets me know that his ear is not so heavy that he can’t hear me. I have to believe that!
Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Our prayers must ultimately be rooted in our faith– in our love of God, and in glory to Him. If what we are praying for does not glorify Him, or testify to our love of Him and His commandments… then our motives need to change, because God will not grant any request that goes against His Holy Will. The Holy Spirit will convict you if this is the case, in my humbling experience.
But waiting is so important too. It shows, actively, that we trust God’s timing as much as we trust His will. Prayer us ultimately about God, not about us. We are not entitled to get our requests fulfilled, let alone fulfilled now, or in the manner we choose. None of that is our choice.
When we are waiting on a response, do so with joyful surrender to whatever God’s answer is… whether it is yes, no, not now, or not in that way. But absolutely be ready to get a yes, too– sometimes having a prayer answered affirmatively and quickly is a bigger test of faith than the alternative. If you pray for a healing, are you truly ready to change your life to accommodate that God-given change in health? Or are you secretly afraid of getting better because you aren’t sure how not to be sick? Similarly, if you pray for deliverance from a certain repetitive sin or addictive temptation, are you prepared for the gap that will leave in your life, that the devil will try to fill again? Are you prepared for the increase in holy activity you will need to cultivate in order to prevent relapse? I give these examples because that is my current struggle, and it speaks volumes as to the importance of motivation, trust, surrender, faith, and readiness in prayer.
We must be willing to do the work required to live in the will of God, when we pray for it. His will WILL be done, no matter what. So… let us pray, above and with all else, to be conformed TO His Will, in both our prayers and in our lives.
“Rose early to seek God and found Him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company?”
— Robert Murray M'Cheyne
He is up all night anyway, watching over us with mercy and compassion. So the moment we awake, He is already there, full of love, brighter and warmer than the sun.
Rise early, and watch the sun rise with your Beloved, with God who created both it and you, and who rejoices in your loving company too.
sojourneronearth: Why live if my purpose isn’t immediately to preach the gospel anymore. If I cannot do that, what is the point?
Make every moment a preaching, then. May every tiny thing you do be done out of acknowledgement and honor of Christ’s grace working in you, even if only God sees you. Start there.
God will give you the opportunity to preach the Gospel in greater situations and with greater means when He determines the time is right.
Your purpose is always to preach the Gospel, so do not worry… but that preaching must become a way of living first. That’s what makes it immediate.
Do not despair; there is always hope through Christ. He is the point.🙏❤
“Let us not only take care to defend ourselves from the contagion of evil but also to promote the good, sustain it, give witness to it, defend it, and multiply it. We must take responsibility for the fact that the world is suffering from evil stemming from our lukewarmness.”
— Pope John XXIII
We are the carriers of Christ’s Light. It is absolutely our responsibility to shine it in the face of evil, for ourselves and for all others.
Defend it, promote it, sustain it, witness it, multiply it. Remember this.
That's the excitement in obedience: finding out later what God had in mind.
Living life with faithful obedience-- doing what God calls us to do even if we don’t understand the details at the moment-- is such a joyful, liberating, exciting experience. When we surrender to God’s will with love, every moment becomes a genuine gift. You never know what He has in mind until you open the present, as it were.
"If we were asked how wise we were, most of us wouldn't know exactly how to answer. We talk a lot about intelligence, but not very much about wisdom, so we don't always know what wisdom looks like.
Solomon gives one sign that helps us recognize wisdom in our own life and the lives of others when he writes of wisdom: "Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace" (Proverbs 3:17).
Nobody's life is always and only pleasant. No one walks exclusively on paths of peace. Not even our Lord, Jesus Christ, experienced such a life, and He was the wisest man Who ever lived.
But there still can be great insight gained by asking the question "Do my decisions, attitudes, words, and lifestyle create peace or discord?" How we answer might suggest something about our current state of wisdom-- and how we may become wiser with God's help.
Lord, give me the gift of wisdom that I may walk in paths of peace. Amen."
-Thomas Nelson
True peace is grounded in obedient faith, and resides in the heart. True, our outer circumstances might still be tumultuous, but how are we affecting them? Are our choices serving God, no matter how discordant my environment may be? Is my way of life honoring God? Are my thoughts resting on Him? Is my attitude befitting a child of God? Indeed, herein lies wisdom-- even when we may not have any solid answers, even when we are helpless and confused, or even when we cannot see any hope of external peace... we can still be wise, and so still experience and create true peace, if we simply turn to God in all things. Choose to serve Him in any and every way you can, in any moment, even if all you can do is pray, or be patient, or be humble. We can always serve God. And if we do, then we are both being wise and walking in the most pleasant ways, for God is joy and hope itself, even on the road to Calvary.
"God's provision for communion with Him through prayer says a lot about His character. He sought us and established this divine channel of prayer. He listens for our cry as a mother listens for her young.
He knows my voice and attends to my cries. Such is my God: a God of loving initiative Who seeks me, a God of great sensitivity Who listens for me, a God of intimacy who knows me, and a God of grace Who attends to my needs.
God's plan for marriage is to bring together a husband and wife in order that they might become "one flesh"-- spirit, soul, and body. Spiritual oneness through mutual prayer is part of God's plan.
It's not surprising that the world's order for marriage is exactly the opposite: "Let's be physically intimate, then see if friendship develops. If later it seems important, we will explore our spiritual life." Many couples carry the pain of these misplaced priorities for decades, unaware that God has made provision to restore His priorities. Critical to this restoration process is tapping into the power and potential of prayer.
Thanks, Lord, for the special privilege of sharing together in prayer!
Prayer should play a vital part in the life of married believers. It's important to pray and entreat God's attention and favor for your spouse. Prayers of thanksgiving can draw a couple together in closeness. Prayers for the children help a couple be of one mind when it comes to rearing their kids. Requesting prayer as one spouse leaves for the office in the morning gives the couple the opportunity to be like-minded during the day.
God is willing to give ear to our prayers, both those said individually and those offered as a couple. We should make sure we take the time to enjoy this wonderful privilege.
At what times of the day and under what circumstances will you and your spouse share together in prayer?"
- David & Teresa Ferguson
This is what marriage is about and for. This is why the church stands firmly against the modern secular ideas of marriage, which eschew prayer and religious priority, instead focusing on sexuality and desire. Christian marriage is about family– about being part of God’s adopted family in Christ, and in raising children within that same truth, teaching them through God’s word to be good abd faithful members of the human family as well, both at home and in the world. Secular “marriage” frequently rejects this anchor of family, not only rejecting the idea of parenthood, and therefore of raising and/or bearing children, but also rejecting the call to be a child of God, instead choosing to serve their own interests and opinions, seeking self-idolatry through sensuality and carefree living.
God is our Parent, a loving Father who Mothers us as well. If we reject this truth, we cannot truly live as His Children… and then how could we ever raise children ourselves, let alone be parents, if we do not have that divine Example to follow?
And how could we ever truly have a unitive loving relationship with a spouse, if we do not first seek loving unity with God, who loves us more than any human ever can? How could we ever truly communicate with our spouse, if we do not communicate with God in prayer?
Marriage is a sacrament, a holy event of our faith, and it must always be recognized and honored as such, or else it will collapse, as all things will if they are chopped off at the very root.
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