Lasting friendships........

Friends help you overcome challenges you may face at times in your life. A special thing about friendship is that friends have the ability to do this different ways like simply talking something through and giving advice or physically helping you. As Mrs. Barb says, "I am a blessed woman". In difficult times, friends make you see things from a different point of view, allowing you to take time to reflect and examine the situation. By doing this it allows you to see another perspective of the situation and find another way to overcome your challenge. This way friends can help you to overcome challenges by talking things through, which reminds me of this verse found in the book of Proverbs 27:17 "Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpen's the countenance of his friend." Not only can friends help you overcome challenges through giving another perspective, but they can also help physically through a situation. Like the old saying "many hands make light work", this point is also drawn from the book of Ecclesiastes 4:9, it says "Two are better than one; because they have good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his companion: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has no one help him up." This scripture shows that friends help physically through situations not only emotionally or spiritually. Friends help us to find the meaning of life by helping us overcome many challenges we may face.

Are you willing?

In our selfish age, people have grown accustom to using each other. After being used, you will be left behind drained and withered. Until you decide to go back to the only Person who can fulfill you, the vicious cycle will continue.Only in Jesus Christ can you find the life and joy you are looking for. He is the only one who can bring you back to life.Trials can be shock therapy to wake us from our self-absorption. When we are stripped of our pleasures and distractions, we are forced to look at life in a different way. If a person thinks that life is all about wealth, and he loses his wealth, he is now forced to look life differently. He is now forced to learn to live life without his precious wealth. Now he is strained to move out from his narrow world and live in the real world. He now starts to search life’s meaning beyond what he always knew.
And those who seek shall find.
Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Are you willing to ask Him?

Sacrafices.....

A GREAT friend of mine had this as her Facebook post :
Make sacrafices that will lead you closer to God rather than the compromises that lead you away from Him. We often spend to much time justifying things when we can just live a blameless life and stay out of the gray areas. Why waste time justifying things to gratify our flesh, when we could pour our effort into more meaningful actions like reaching the lost. - Emily Shuman

I met a little boy today, on his birthday, who lives in a hotel room, trying to get away from an abusive father. When his teacher wrote him a card (his only present) that tells him he is special, he says, "this was the best birthday ever".We can impact the world, not only with money or the "opportunity of a lifetime"...but with eyes opened to see the opportunities around us everyday, with humble hearts and outstreched hands.

What if Sometimes....

Sometimes is an interesting word, it's various definitions are: at times, now and then and occasionally. It makes you think what if God wanted to help us sometimes like we serve Him sometimes. I am sitting in my office at work, and I am watching 2 children of the people that I work with. One's name is Sam he is 5 and Anna she is 10. Watching them draw two totally different pictures, two totally different people and two totally different ages, acting totally different as they draw their pictures. Anna is content and happy with just drawing her picture while Sam is all over the place making battleship noises and noises like he is blowing things up. He gets so excited when he draws. (What if) sometimes we got that excited about talking to God as Sam does with talking to His paper? Don't you think that God would love for us to make noises (worship) Him in song and in prayer? I know I may have a crazy way of thinking about things but what if sometimes that's all we did was worship Him? What if we took time out of our busy days to talk to Him, to just mention His name? He longs for us to worship Him, to love Him. As Anna starts to sing it makes me smile. What if sometimes....?

He is MY Strength

The LORD is the strength of my life…The LORD is…my strength, in whom I will trust. (Psalm 27:1 and 18:2)

Living by grace involves depending upon God to work in our lives. For the greater part of his life, David was an outstanding example of such living. This was certainly evident in the way David frequently confessed the Lord as his strength. Everyone in this world needs strength just to deal with the daily responsibilities and challenges of life. When you add the calling and desire of believers to honor God, much strength is needed day by day. David confessed the Lord as his strength for living. How wonderful to know that the Lord is with us to impart His strength in us for every aspect of our lives, whether home, or work, or ministry, or whatever. In our lives, we need strength to stay on course. The world, the flesh, and the devil want to prevent us from progressing down the Lord's perfect path. David found in the Lord the strength for this need. At times, when walking along our designated path of life, we get trapped in nets, laid by the enemy of our souls. When David experienced these traps, he cried out to God for the necessary strength. At other times along our path, the problem is not a trap, but an all-out battle. Look to him for the strength you need; His word says He will never leave you nor forsake you. Just trust in Him for all your needs

No Hiding Places From God

Though they dig into hell, from there my hand shall take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down; and though they hide themselves on top of Carmel, from there I will search and take them; though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them (Amos 9:2,3).

The Bible teaches that God is everywhere present—omnipresent. In every place in the universe God is present. He is not limited by space. The psalmist wrote,

Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there; if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you (Psalm 137:7-12).

David said that God's presence couldn't be eluded through space (8), speed (9), or darkness (12). In other words, nothing in the universe can hide a person from God.This is not to say that God's form is spread out so that parts of Him exist in every location. God is spirit; He has no physical form. He is present everywhere in that everything is immediately in His presence. At the same time He is present everywhere in the universe. No one can hide from Him and nothing escapes His notice. God knows your every being, thought and breath you take. Nothing you say, do or even not do will pass Him by. He holds us all accountable. The fact that God is everywhere present is a constant source of comfort for believers. Wherever the believer may go, they will find themselves in the protection of God's presence. There is no place where a believer can get away from God's reach. His presence may be experienced at any time and at any place. God has promised the believer that He is with them always.