Yes Thank God I'm Forgiven! Hallelujah! What a blessing Your love, grace, mercy and forgiveness are to me Lord! Thank You for saving a wretch like me! Thank You for allowing me to come as I am and then transforming me into Your image and growing me in Your righteousness! Please continue Your good work in me! Come! Purify! Prepare and send me! Amen!
Good Morning Saved, Forgiven, Peaceful, Fruitful, Followers of Jesus and His Good Ways! Amen! Life can be hard, stressful and often causes anxiety. BUT GOD! We have an alternative. We get to choose peace as we cast all anxiety and junk in us to God and do our best to let it all in His more than capable hands. PTL! Peace is a fruit of the Spirit. That means the Holy Spirit will help us develop that fruit along with several others. But we need to choose it and receive it and get to work at growing in it. God promises us peace beyond understanding when we need it. The question is will we be still and receive it or stay anxious and dwelling on all the negatives? We get to choose joy that comes from our trusting God and releasing all to His care knowing that he knows, cares and is able to work all things together for good. Amen! DO IT! He is our strength and shield and help in times of trouble! PTL! Maybe start by envisioning balling up all that anxiety, stress and junk and wrong thinking and toss it like a ball to God. And this is not a game of catch. It's one of keep away. He takes it and hides it and delivers you to peace and joy. Try it! It's like my dog Maggie. She does not play fetch, She plays "Mine!" and takes what every you are playing with and hides it. That's how it can work as we choose to cast all anxiety to God and choose joy trusting that he's got this. Amen! How cool is our God! I've have and am walking with some people through really hard stuff--depression, anxiety, terminal conditions and I've experienced two choices: 1. Let go and trust God or 2. keep bound up and anxious. Sometimes things begin with 2 and then move to 1 as we realize the futility and mental stress of holding onto the junk and trying to control things only God can, I've seen people move to a place where they can choose joy and know peace and amazing grace. Sometimes we have to submit and stop wrestling with God and circumstances to really know shalom. And remember, sometimes we need pruning to produce more and better fruit and pruning hurts! Trust God! Receive all he has and keep counting your blessings and worshiping. He loves you!
If you are going through any of this, be still and give your junk to God and reach out to your teammates to help you keep focused on and trusting God. Maybe God is sending you to be His helper, comforter and peace bringer? Allow it! We all need God and each other. and we can really trust that He has our best interests at heart. Pray for His Kingdom to come and will to be done. We are better together! Pray for God's love, peace and joy to overflow you and all of us. May we be bringers of these good gifts from God through His Spirit's help. Good fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and often we need the fruit of self-control and patience with ourselves or circumstances to know these and peace beyond understanding. How is God speaking to you ? What's He want of you? Choose love, peace and joy and prepare your minds for the action of giving it all to God and trusting as you practice self-control with patience. God is with you and your friends are wanting to help. Let them and be one of those friends that are present in love and bring peace and joy. I'm praying for you and us. God has a plan! Trust and follow Him and know His peace! Amen! Check out and meditate through the blogs and devos below prayerfully with a willing heart and open mind. Shalom shalom=perfect peace to you all!
Connection Blogs:
- Peace, a Fruit of the Spirit
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. (Galatians 5:22)
The fact that peace is a fruit of the Spirit is simply biblical truth. It can become for us a matter-of-fact, intellectual truth that doesn’t impact us until we see it up close and personal.
The week I was working on this devotional, I received a blog from a former teacher and friend, Dr. Eleanor Daniel regarding the work of peace in her life. I share it here. Two days after she wrote this blog, she went home to Jesus.
“’s post has particularly personal meeting. It’s my 77th birthday, celebrated with great joy with my four siblings and other family and friends. But even more significantly, when we began drafting this post a couple of weeks ago, we could talk about PEACE as a fruit of the spirit in academic terms. I have found that peace is a very personal matter right now. Life is undergoing a big change. I have been on dialysis for over three years and had anticipated being on it for some time more. That is not to be. In the progression of things it is important to stop dialysis. My final dialysis treatment was this past . And I have been told I can anticipate a couple of weeks to live. When I returned from the hospital three days ago, I shared the fact that I am no longer on dialysis with one of my close friends in the nursing home. She said to me, “You look different. You look well! You’re at peace, aren’t you.” I AM AT PEACE—the peace that passes understanding. And now, “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you PEACE” (Numbers 6:24-26, emphasis added). —Dr. Eleanor Daniel
When peace as a fruit of the Spirit has been cultivated and is allowed to grow in our lives, it allows us to deal with absolutely anything that comes our way. Cultivating peace means standing against that which is not peace. When anxiety rears its head, we reject it rather than embrace it. The worries that often come our way are rejected. When we are plagued by “what if?” thoughts, we turn from that, recognizing it as unprofitable thinking. Most of all, we continually come before Jesus in prayer, asking him to grant us his peace.
The fruit of the Spirit that is peace is not about the absence of violence or merely a passive acceptance of things as they are. This peace is never about changing our outward circumstances to make life easy for us. It is always about walking close to the Prince of Peace and allowing him to deal with everything we are facing. In his presence, we dwell in peace. It becomes a permanent way of life…even at its end.
Like virtually everything in the Kingdom of God, peace must be sought and asked for. Would you make the pursuit of the peace of Christ a part of your everyday prayer time?
Thank you, Lord, for giving me your Spirit and allowing the fruit of your Spirit’s presence to be growing and active in my life. I know, Lord, that each of those qualities or characteristics must be cared for and desired. I especially take the peace you have given me through your Spirit and ask you to cause that to grow to the point where your peace overcomes everything that might attempt to steal that peace.
Praise our God, who is unfailing in love and great in compassion (Psalm 51:1-2).
Give thanks for the forgiveness of all your past, present, and future sins through Jesus’ death 2,000 years ago!
Confess that your sin has been against God himself (51:3-5).
Commit to the full integrity of having God’s truth and wisdom in the inner recesses of your heart (51:6).
Ask God for full cleansing, purity, joy, and gladness (51:7-9).
Pray for the integrity and understanding of your church’s leaders. Ask God to give them effectiveness in equipping you to lead people to God’s forgiveness and righteousness (51:13-14).
Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayerleader.com. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount.
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. - Psalm 27:14 (NIV)
When my normally prolific irises didn’t bloom, I consulted a friend who is an accomplished gardener. She advised me to move them to an area with more sunlight. I did so, but alas, only one of the dozen plants flowered the following spring. I learned that many plants don’t bloom the year after they are transplanted. It takes them a while to adjust to their new surroundings. The next year they produced 52 flowers! It was worth the wait.
Transitions can be hard for people too. After earning a degree in education, I got a job teaching history at a junior high school. The first year was unbelievably challenging, and I was tempted to quit. But with no other job options, I went back for a second year. As I grew accustomed to my surroundings, I began to flourish and became an effective teacher.
Three years later, I took a job with a prison ministry. It included a considerable amount of teaching, and I might have felt unqualified had I not persevered in my earlier job. Now I can see that God graciously walked with me during that first year of teaching — a difficult time that nonetheless prepared me for what was to come. Since then I have faced other transitions with more confidence, knowing God can use all those changes to produce fruit in me.
's Prayer
Gracious Father, thank you for transforming us when we are transplanted so that we can bloom even more abundantly. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Our Daily Bread
Sitting with the Suffering
No one said a word to [Job], because they saw how great his suffering was. Job 2:13
“Daddy, my head hurts.” “Daddy, I’m so cold.” “Daddy, can you rub my feet?”
A high fever, chills, and body aches recently descended cruelly upon my teenage daughter. She wanted me to make it better. But mostly she just wanted me near. Eventually we took her to urgent care. “Virus,” we were told. Nothing to do but ride it out.
I with my sick girl for hours that day. Rubbing her feet. Getting her medicine. Desperately wanting her to feel better. Occasionally, my selfish side complained, This is hard. Indeed, it is hard to sit with people’s suffering, to witness their hurt up close.
Job’s friends saw his suffering up close too. These three guys are often—fairly!—criticized for their later poor treatment of Job. But it’s easy to forget that, initially, they simply with him: “They on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was” (Job 2:13).
Jobs’ friends remind us that when someone we love is hurting, it’s our presence—our being there, whether we speak or not—that often matters most. Their example reminds us that even though we may not always know what to say, simply sitting with someone in their suffering may be the greatest gift we can give.
By Adam Holz
REFLECT & PRAY
Who do you know who’s struggling? How might you be present for them?
Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to save our suffering world. Please help me to see those whom You might have me encourage amid their struggles and pain.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Job’s friends were doing very well in their mission of comfort until they started talking. For seven days, they were a silent presence with their suffering friend (Job 2:13). Silence tends to make us uncomfortable, so we may try to fill that void with words. But in times of great suffering (like Job’s), words alone are often inadequate to express the comfort or help that the hurting person truly needs. We can credit Job’s friends for their sacrificial seven days of silent presence, but they caused hurt when they began to offer answers that didn’t ease Job’s hurt, pain, or loss. We can ask God to give us wisdom to know when to speak and when to offer the comfort of a silent presence with those who are hurting.
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