Monthly Archives: March 2015

Sometimes the experience of loving and being loved generates warm feelings that bring joy, happiness, satisfaction, and encouragement. However, true love is not just a feeling, and Jesus tells us to love those who will not or cannot return our love. When we experience this side of love, it doesn’t feel rewarding. Instead, it may produce feelings of rejection, hurt, anger, or just hopelessness to overcome the negative. To be able to love and treat with respect those who do…..

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Whether we realize it or not, we are all in the continual process of building our lives on some type of standard or principle. The principles we hear and believe will influence our day-to-day choices. Our decision-making will affect the course of action on which we choose to build our lives. Jesus urged us to hear and to build our lives upon His words and teachings. If we listen and act upon His Word, we will be like the sensible…..

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The hand of the Lord was on Elijah as he spoke truth to the nation of Israel in order to turn their hearts back to God and to help them recover from the destructive patterns of the spirit of Baal. God used this mighty prophet to prove Jehovah’s power over darkness and bring a message of direction and hope for Israel’s future. On Mount Carmel, Elijah experienced severe spiritual battle-followed by mighty spiritual victory! Yet, when the enemy Jezebel bullied…..

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Mankind has some universal traits. Everyone experiences periods of hardship, worry, and anxiety as a result of our common problems. Sometimes these problems feel never-ending, with seemingly no way to escape the negative thoughts and fluctuation of feelings that attempt to drag us into hopelessness and a sense of being overwhelmed. The dark, negative side wants to take us down the path of believing that God is an uncaring, harsh being who will put more on us than we can…..

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The Lord desires that His children be givers and bless others. The Scripture states that when we liberally bless others out of a pure heart full of God’s love, abundant blessings will return to us in the same measure we give out. On the other hand, we are told that if we scarcely bless others because of reluctance, unwillingness, or stinginess, we will scarcely reap a blessing. It is a spiritual Law: we will reap what we sow! Many times…..

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There are different intensity levels of fear: dread, nervousness, worry fretfulness, anxiety, panic, or terror. When we are afraid and act out, our behaviors are often very predictable. Sometimes fear motivates us to stay and fight a person or situation, or we may go to the opposite extreme and run away in an attempt to escape our fear. There are many ways we can run from fear: through denial, rationalization, staying too busy, obsessing, talking constantly, or feeding an addiction……

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Just like the leper, some of us have seen and heard of Jesus’ mighty power and grace to heal. We believe He has the authority and ability to bring us wholeness, but at the same time we doubt whether He is willing to help us. Our skepticism speaks: ‘Why would He help Me? I don’t deserve healing. It is His will for me to stay the same and not move forward’. And our hearts plunge deeper into more uncertainty. Yet…..

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Jesus calls those who are overwhelmed, overburdened, and struggling to come to Him to find help. He offers Himself as the way out for struggling human beings to find rest, even as they are living in this stressful world. When we have labored long and feel physically exhausted or emotionally and mentally depleted, His gentle call is, “Come to me. I will help you find relief.” Because of His great love, the Lord is always concerned about the state of…..

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It is easy to be kind to those who are kind, considerate, reasonable, and respectful. It is not quite so easy to be kind to those who are unkind, inconsiderate, unreasonable, and disrespectful. When someone offends us-and we haven’t learned to hold our tongue, pull away, and run to the Lord to unload the hurt and anger in our hearts-we will most likely get pulled into our offender’s bad temper, anger, contention, or abusive language and act in a way…..

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Open Your Hands The dictionary states that the work casting is a verb meaning “to throw something away from yourself.” Yet we cannot throw or let go of anything until we learn to open our hands and hearts. Without realizing it, we hold on to our worries, doubts, uncertainties, and fears grasping them tightly from sunrise to sunset. The fretfulness and nervousness we feel keeps our hearts bound in the condition of “anxiety”. Then we feel overwhelmed and don’t know…..

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