I grew up the youngest of 8 kids and you can ask any of my siblings and they’ll tell you, ‘mom always knew best,’ in any situation.  By the time I came along, it became clear.  When mom said something or told me to do something, I should do it.  And, she did know best.  As long as we followed the rules and obeyed our parents, things went smoothly…… not!

There’s someone who knows best for EVERY situation, every trial, every decision, every path to take and every person to share life with.  God!

It’s hard to go through trials when we’re thinking, “this is the best path to take, or this is the right job to take, or I’ll just do this and our relationship will get better.” The problem with that is, we don’t know what’s best for us.  We think we do and we conjure up all these scenarios in our mind and when they don’t work out, we blame God.

I recently went through a season where I just knew this is how I wanted it to work out. I prayed and asked God to give me the desire of my heart.  Well, He came through, but not the way I wanted, but that’s okay.  His way actually turned out to be a whole lot better for me and my situation than I had originally wanted.

Quit trying to play God and think that your plans are better than God’s.  They never are.  He knew this would happen in this way before I was even a thought.

All I can say is, God is good, and His love for me is as deep as the deepest sea.  Let’s just say I’m feeling so blessed and loved right now.   

God knows best, always..

Romans 8:28 – “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[a]for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Think about the above statement. If you are prayed up, confident of your identity in Christ, and sure of who is fighting your battles, fear doesn’t stand a chance of hanging around.

A lot of people will pray a prayer, asking Jesus to help them out of a situation, and then if the answer to that prayer doesn’t come, or is late in coming, they give up.  They stop praying.  Fear sets in.

Once you understand that fear, depression, even suicidal thoughts are all spiritual issues and you use this, along with the word of God, to stand against these evil forces, you are going to have success in your pursuit of wholeness.

It is inescapable that you will experience fear in your life; the question to ask is how to deal with it.
Have faith that God’s got this.  Once you put your trust in God, fear leaves.  Fear loses ground, it has no hold. 

When fear comes, and it will come, stand with God and watch Satan run.

James 4:7 – “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” 

We depend on the sun to give us light each day, and the moon’s glow to give us light at night. We depend on food and water to keep us alive each day.  But there’s one source that gives us life, a resource available that is never ending. God.

By keeping our eyes on God as our source, we will find that we’ll never lack anything.  On the other hand, if we depend on people to meet our needs, and we place our dependence on people as our source, this opens the door for anger and disappointment.

Let’s not dismiss the fact that God uses other people to help meet our needs.  Let’s keep our expectations on God to avoid unnecessary frustration, disappointment and anger with people.

We need to help each other and bear one another’s burdens, and we need to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, but we can only be a resource of the one Source – God.

2 Kings 4:6-7: – “When the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another jar.” And he said to her, “There is not one jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.  She came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go and sell the oil and pay what you owe. You and your sons can live on the rest.”

Whatever happened to writing letters to each other? They call it ‘snail mail’ these days. Why? Because it’s a slow form of communication? In this instant society we live in these days, we want to speak, make a statement, and immediately want a response back.

I’m sure if you asked most people of the current generation if they knew what a ‘pen pal’ was, they would look at you like you had a third eyeball. After the invention of ink for a quill pen and led for pencils, people wrote letters and the mail man delivered them. This was their social media, lol…

I can remember writing letters to my mom when I moved away and started a family. Yes, we could call each other and talk on the phone, but with the cost of a long distance phone call, that could become expensive. I can also remember the anticipation when I opened the mailbox and there was a letter from her. I would find a quiet place and read every word, slowly, meditating on her face and watching her in my mind write the letter.

What if we could get the same passion in anticipation of reading the Bible? After all, the Bible is God’s love letter to us.

The Bible is full of nourishment, spiritual food to keep us healthy. Take time to read it today.

What one change can you make to your normal morning or evening routine that will create time to read and meditate on God’s word?

Psalm 119:103 - “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Panic is a sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.

Have you ever been at home or in a building, when all of a sudden, the fire alarm went off unexpectantly?  Did it make you jump in fear?  Could you feel every beat of your heart at that very minute?

There are many factors that could induce a panic attack, but the underlying issue is fear.  Panic is fear gone wild.  The Bible doesn’t specifically call these situations panic attacks, but it does describe what a panic attack feels like in Psalm 44:4-6 – “My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me.  Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me.”

A key component in overcoming panic attacks is to normalize them.  Recognize that they are not life-threatening and that God is bigger than the fear.  If we let fear consume us and allow worry to set in, it’s inevitable that an attack will come.

Jesus also says in Matthew 10:28, “do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

If you’re a Christian, been saved by God’s Son, then you know to trust in God when difficult things happen in life.  I can’t explain sometimes when I’m going through a challenging situation why I have a calmness within me. What I can explain is that I first go to God in prayer.  Give Him my burdens.  Allow Him to take away the fear.  And I don’t forget those times when they have passed.  I brag on God to others about how He got me through it. 

Remember everything ends.  This is a season of life.  God is good and His mercy and love endures forever.  He promises that!

How’s your faith today?  Is it grounded in God’s truth?  Is it stronger today than yesterday?  Are you using the spiritual muscles you have and working them daily?

Faith in God is listed as one of the fundamental teachings of Scripture.  Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

Faith has many definitions if you start looking in dictionaries. Faith in God means to trust and believe that what God says is true, is true.  It also means that this faith is present, even when we don’t see the proof of the promise yet.

If you’re a child of God, it’s this same faith that saved you.  As you grow with God, read His word and develop a relationship with Him, your faith will grow.

I hope all of the above is true of you.  There are also faith breakers out there.  People who say they believe in God, but there’s no proof of it.  They have temporal faith at best.

Don’t be a faith breaker.  Be a faith builder.  Build your foundation on God and watch your life flourish. 

Ask God for more faith, really, ask Him.  Study what the Bible reveals about faith and live by faith.  Put into practice what you read in the Bible.

Hebrews 11:6 – “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”

Have you ever been on a guided tour?  Whether it’s a tour of a museum or a guided hike, the concepts are the same.  The guide is the expert in whichever the case may be.  He/she knows the landscape.  They know the trails by heart.  They know the history of the area and can answer any questions on anything.

We, who are Christians, also have a personal guide, every day.  This guide is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is our compass that guides us each day, starting out on the right trail.  We will have starts and stops along the journey in life, but without the Holy Spirit, we would get lost.  We would lose direction.  We would find ourselves on a path we hadn’t intended to walk on.

This Holy Spirit is a gift to all of those who believe in Jesus and have repented.  It’s our teacher, releasing knowledge to those of us who want to get somewhere in life. 

Quit wandering around under your own cognition.  You’ll only end up on a detour that couldn’t be avoided or on the wrong trail, leading to destruction.

You must seek out the Holy Spirit.  It doesn’t just come to you suddenly, like requesting a personal guide on your hiking trip. 

The other amazing and wonderful thing about the Holy Spirit is once you have it, you’ll never lose it.  It will always be there when you need it.

Get your personal guide to life today.  The Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38 – “And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

As described by someone in church Sunday, there are 3 major sins of wealth. They are greed, hoarding and covetousness.

Greed is a strong and selfish desire to have more of something. Usually this is in the form of money or power. As a Christian, we are warned about storing up riches in this world. We also know that everything temporary, including money, will be destroyed some day. Greed traps people and brings ruin and destruction. They feel they can never have enough money.

Hoarding seems to be linked with anxiety or with some type of loss. People have a chronic desire to acquire large amounts of things and have an inability to discard them.

Covetousness is described as when you want something that belongs or belonged to someone else.

All three of the sins above are forbidden if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s not something I made up, it’s in the Bible.

So why do people do it? Possibly selfish reasons. You can’t be a selfish person and a Christian. It’s not in the rule book (Bible).

“Give to the needy and the poor,” Jesus said.

Rich or poor, we all have the same responsibility. We must keep our priorities straight. We must commit our work to the Lord. We must be good and faithful servants.

It also says in Matthew 19:24, “that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Understand that whatever you have belongs to God.

1 Timothy 6:10 - “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”