Monthly Archives: February 2015

True joy and gladness come from God, but many of us do not really know this experientially. We want gladness to be in our lives, yet it seems that our circumstances often rob us from finding the place of true joy. Because change in this world is inevitable, there is no constant in our circumstances. In other words, everyone’s life will consist of ups and downs. When we believe the lie that true joy and gladness occur only when life…..

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God recognizes every act of service and love we do for Him in secret. Because we are God’s children, we do not need to be acknowledged by people in order to be valued. We are valued by God through Christ. In fact, God values every action we perform out of a pure heart. This means that our motivation to serve others, pray, worship, or give is carried out because of our love and connection with God. We do not perform…..

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As believers we all long to witness the “glory of God.” That is, we desire God’s true, magnificent nature to be revealed for all to experience and encounter while living in our world. Mary and Martha longed to see the true glory of God. Then their brother Lazarus died while Jesus was away, and they struggled to understand how anything good, especially God’s glory could come out of their suffering and loss. When we hurt and life feels discombobulated, it…..

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Jesus told us that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. The dictionary defines neighbor as “our fellow man,” which covers just about everybody. Not only does Jesus call us to love the ones we like, but He also calls us to love those that we don’t like-even our enemies. Unless we know how to love ourselves, we will not be capable of truly loving others. If we are hard on ourselves, we will in turn…..

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God has such enormous love for us, but sometimes when we experience loss, pain, or anguish. this is hard to believe. We ask, “If God loves us so much, how can He allow His children to suffer? The truth is this: we are born into a fallen world where suffering results from imperfections in people and imperfections on the physical planet. Many use their freedom and power in a negative way, which causes more suffering to the human race. Whether…..

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What pleases God? We might answer: being a good person, going to church, helping people, and so forth. Although a “good work” in and of itself does not bring displeasure to God, it is not, according to Scripture, what brings pleasure to Him. God is looking for those who will believe, rely on, and have confidence in Him. When He finds somebody who will believe, He is exceedingly pleased. The triune God wants the opportunity to prove that He rewards…..

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All of our good works and good intentions are not lasting or true, without the motivation of God’s love stimulating our hearts into action. The Bible says that if we speak eloquently but do so without love, our words become just a clanging noise. Furthermore, our wisdom, knowledge, and faith amount to zilch if God’s love is not involved. Even if we give all that we have to the poor, it counts for nothing without love. When we do good…..

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When we experience the pain of grief it is usually associated with some sort of loss or perceived loss in our lives. Personal grief that affects the whole human race can be divided into two categories: godly grief and worldly grief. With godly grief, our pain manifests as anger or hurt that compels us to turn toward God for help and relief. After we choose to go to the Lord and work out our emotions of grief, slowly but surely…..

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Generally speaking anger is an emotion that most of us find uncomfortable to experience, so we attempt to deny and push down its negative and persistent presence. There are others who feel comfortable with anger, and self-righteously use it to protect themselves and control others. Still most of us desire to walk in love not in anger! Yet as we live out our lives in this world, anger is a natural, human emotion that must be dealt with. In the…..

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