Our Leading God

Always let God lead in your life. Surrender to let Him lead. Do not be stubborn and demand to do our own thing. It is righteous and humble to let God lead in your life. Unfortunately, we want to do what we want to do. However, our way is not God’s way. Our way is flawed and works only on a temporary basis. You must give up wanting what you want. Not giving up wanting what you want results in failure. Give up your wants and needs in favor of God’s wants and needs and you will succeed in life. You can try not following God (called going your way) but when your way does not work, let God lead. Let God lead while you are strong rather than weak. Let God lead while you have things already going in your direction rather than wanting God to rescue you when you are deep in trouble. Let God lead when you do not know what to do. Let God lead when you are certain you know what to do.

Belief In God

Think for a moment about the consequences of believing or having faith in God if believing or having faith in God did not require any sacrifice. If believing or having faith in God was all benefit and no cost, everyone would believe and have faith. However, believing or having faith in God has a cost and because there is a cost to believing and having faith, the wheat is separated from the chaff. Afflictions and how you bear up under your afflictions tell God how much you love Him and how much you are willing to sacrifice for Him. Belief does not always bring blessings. Sometimes, maybe much of the time, belief brings great afflictions in some form or another. Obviously, we want a faith where there are no afflictions and all blessings. We want blessings but we must understand our faith also brings afflictions. Our faith brings afflictions because God will not feed our greed and ego by structuring our faith system so there is no hardship. As lowly sinners all, we all want the big payoff from God without paying in anything. However, your belief and faith in God will definitely require you to pay a price. Get used to it. Get over it. Glory in it!!! Your belief may require you to suffer greatly. However, if you expect your faith to not come with afflictions, your faith will not last very long. Strong faith weathers every storm of afflictions. Weak faith falters under afflictions. To be a true child of God, your belief must be strong. To be a true child of God, your belief must be stable. To be long-lasting your belief must rest upon a foundation of quiet power and inner strength, both of which can totally dominate every affliction. Most of all, your faith or your belief in God must be grounded in what you can give to God, not grounded in what you can receive from God.

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The God Who Knows

Although we have inventions and technology unheard of two thousand years ago, the human race has made little if any progress in terms of our being able to live with and love each other. What we have in common with Mary and Joseph, with the wise men, with the shepherds, and with ordinary people two thousand years ago is that we have worries, fears, anxieties, dashed hopes, broken dreams, and doubts about God. We also share more positive parts of our life with people who lived two thousand years ago like our ability to hope, our ability to have hearts overflowing, and our ability to possess absolute certainty about what we believe. What we also have in common with persons who lived two thousand years ago is a God who still loves us and who still walks with us and talks with us if we are willing to walk with Him and talk with Him. We still have a God, a being of infinite wisdom and grace, who will still reach down and touch our hearts when we need Him most. What is so often difficult for us to understand is why God does not always do what we want or deliver to us what we think we need. What we must understand about God is that God knows more than we do. What we must understand about God is that God can see all that is, all that can be, and all that ever will be. In our understanding of God, we must also learn to trust God. We must learn to trust God with our life, our future, and all that exists in our world that is within His will and within His love. If God does not communicate to you in a dream as He did with Joseph, perhaps it is because God knows you do not need a dream. If God does not communicate to you in a dream, perhaps God knows you can handle your life just fine the way it is…with you and our Lord Jesus walking side by side down His path.

Finding Peace With God

Many influences of life separate you from God. When you are worried and full of doubt, life can seem to have defeated you. However, you are defeated by life only if you have let yourself be separated from God and His love. When you do not live with God's peace in your heart, you do not see God or feel His presence within you. When you are caught up in waging a war of revenge against persons who hurt you, God is far away from you. For when you are next to God, your heart is at peace and you do not want war. When your heart is filled with anger, God is far away. When you seek God, you cannot find Him if you have anger in your heart and mind. To have Christ living and alive in your heart, you must seek His touch to heal you from the wounds and hurts you suffer. The touch of God helps you resolve conflicts and difficulties. The touch of God helps you persevere in peace when the path of your life gets difficult to walk. Your earnestness in prayer in the face of hardships helps you to stay strong. When you are persecuted, wronged, or slighted, remain holy and next to God. When you remain holy and devout in spite of all the attacks of the darkness against you, Christ wins and you win.

Coffee☕️And Conversation A Ray Of Hope

Coffee☕️And Conversation A Ray Of Hope

New Direction

Human beings are creatures of habit. We can get fixated and we can be immobilized by our fixation on things, events, ideas, or conditions. Being creatures of habit, we don't want to change. We want to keep going in our present direction so much, even if our present direction is headed over a cliff, we still want to keep on going regardless of the consequences. As creatures of habit, we want to keep on doing what we have been doing even if what we have been doing is destructive. There are times when our fixations, our immobilizations, and our heading over a cliff must stop. Our destructive behavior must stop. Each of us must learn to turn in a new direction in our life. For many reasons, we may have to turn in new directions at any age. As we move through the stages of our life at any age, we have a choice between turning in God's direction or Satan's direction. Every waking moment at any age, in any circumstance, we make this choice between Satan and God. Although we are not always aware we are making this kind of choice, our choice is still there. At every instant, in every stage of life, listen to God. Listen to God's voice in your heart. Listen to God's tender voice calling you to be His child. Listen to God's tender voice calling you to love others. Listen to God's tender voice calling you to forgive others. Listen to God's tender voice calling you to serve Him. God is calling you this minute to go in His direction. Won't you listen? Won't you follow?

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Access To God

Genesis people wanted access to God. They were protesting the idea of being scattered over the whole earth. They refused to do what God asked of them and at the same time actively sought God out as a power source. They would be very comfortable in today’s Christian worship world where we take such pride in building our mega-worship machines, take pride in what we are doing, praise ourselves for what we will do, and enthrall ourselves with ourselves. These Genesis people would be especially captivated by our claims of getting great power from God. They would be comfortable in our worship services where we talk about all our great achievements.

Christmas Joy

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The Need For Friendship

We all need others. We all have times when we feel forsaken. We all have times in our lives when we feel weak in loneliness. We all have times in our lives when being alone is the worst time of all. What we fail to see during these times is how really strong we are. What we fail to see in times of hurt and loneliness is how God is with us no matter what our circumstances might be. God is in every moment of our hurt. God is in every moment of our trauma. God is every moment of our tragedy. Inevitably, we all ask why God does not stop or fix the lonely times. What we must remember is the lonely times are not brought upon us by God but by Satan. For with God and with His love, all the lonely times, all the trauma, all the tragedy, all the hurt, all the tears, and all the grief will be washed away and be made as if they never were. We indeed need others in the dark and lonely times, but we need God even more. In others, we can be hurt and disappointed, but in God, there is no hurt and never any disappointment. When you think you cannot live alone, what you must remember is you have never been alone because God has always been with you. You might not like being alone. You might ache for the companionship and friendship of others, but in Christ and in His love you can find peace and comfort beyond any peace and comfort another person can bring you. And when you find His peace and comfort, you can then bring His peace and comfort to another person. Then, in miraculous ways, we cannot often explain when we bring His peace and comfort to another person we are not alone anymore.

Coffee☕️And Conversation A Ray Of Hope

"Masks"

Don't be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a thousand masks and none of them are me.

Don't be fooled, for goodness sake, don't be fooled.

I give you the impression that I'm secure, that confidence is my name and coolness is my game, And that I need no one.

But don't believe me.

Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in aloneness, in fear. That's why I create a mask to hide behind, to shield me from the glance that knows,

But such a glance is precisely my salvation.

That is if it's followed by acceptance if it's followed by love. It's the only thing that can liberate me from my own self-built prison walls.

I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing and that I'm just no good, And that you will reject me.

And so begins the parade of masks. I idly chatter to you. I tell you everything that's really nothing and

Nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me.

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying. I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me.

But you've got to help me. You've got to hold out your hand.

Each time you're kind and gentle, and encouraging, Each time you try to understand because you really care,

My heart begins to grow wings, feeble wings, but wings.

With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding,

You alone can release me from my shallow world of uncertainty.

It will not be easy for you. The nearer you approach me, The blinder I may strike back.

But I'm told that Love is stronger than strong walls, And in this lies my only hope.

Please try to beat down these walls with firm hands,

But gentle hands, for a child, is very sensitive.

Who am I, you wonder. I am every man you meet, and also every woman that you meet,

And I am you, also.

Author Unknown