Tag Archives: life struggles

Pride- Quick Quip- 3/26/24

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Hello. I actually was hospitalized recently. Had not had that happen again in a long while!

Pride I feel is the deadliest of all sins. Might even be more than the fellow ones with this considered those deeply evil sins. It affects politics, public events, movies, television, newspapers, daily life especially ones who feel that they “know it all.”

It affects people who say they are atheist. Ask a non-believer “When did you stop believing in God?” and there is a chance they might tell you. And a lot of times that thought is “If God is so loving He wouldn’t–” fill in the blank. They still believe but they want to turn from Him.

An atheist a lot of times is like a father and child. The child being the subject here.

As this person they might be mad at something they know is wrong and told so and turn away from their dad. They might even be upset that what they need to do is different from what they want to do! And in all of this, they could become prideful and want to hurt the father who has nothing but love for them and say, “I have no father.”

Pride does more than just make a person think they have no father. It forsakes the heart, makes self-intelligence more important than truth from the word the Bible. It makes people believers who should iron and iron each other shaping each other for the truth and the one person in the supposed discussion says “Well this is true to me. That’s all I have to say.” Then the talking is over. The End.

I believe it can make a person go to a church, think they are a real believer, then be so sure that they would die for the truth. Then they pass away and they end up in the trial of the White Throne judgment.

Because “all they did” was claim that their truth that they were demanding was the real truth!

Sad quip but true.

Devotion Strength of Heart and Portion- 7/23/21

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God has us in His Will totally and fully. We might not feel He is here at times or struggle in life to the point we feel we don’t know if we are “worthy” as believers but He is there. Always.

It is through His Son that He saved us and we trust in Him for our day to day lives.

We must not think only of the worries of our lives but remember that He is there with us and will help us through everything we are going through. He gives us strength and joy and peace.

He is also praiseworthy. Check out this verse:

My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalms 73:26 NKJV

We might become so weak in our sin but He is there. We must depend on Him always but to follow Him is much more that that!

I looked up what the bible meant by the writer saying God is his “portion.” It is mentioned not just here but a few other times as well.

Here is what it said:

the writer means that God is the source of his happiness and blessing content with all that the Lord is and provides. partial source: http://www.gotquestions.org Answer to question: “What does it mean to say that God is my portion?”

So the writer’s portion means that God is all that the writer needs and is his joy and happiness. We must reflect that!

Though our hearts get distracted and our flesh leads us to sin we must depend on Him for all of our happiness.

His goodness, His holiness is the way to live. Sure we can have hobbies and even do things that involve passing the time (just to follow God doesn’t mean we must stay in all Christian things at all times) we can do all for the glory of God.

I pray dear reader you continue to or will follow the Lord with all your heart. To be in His love means to have a special one on one time, a spiritual intimacy with God in the relationship.

I’m learning more and more to be like Christ because my heart fails me if I’m not. My flesh does not lead to anything good or to be worth doing.

To be content on what God has given me should be enough. My flesh provides nothing. God amazes me and I am humbled Jesus has guided me all this time. Amen!

God is my portion and He leads me toward His way which is only to be glorified endlessly in this life.

Thank you reader I hope that you are blessed by this.

Devotion 1 John 7/16/21

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The angel has as of this moment shown up at least six times now. Time to write that group of blog notes soon. Was so encouraging, thank you Lord!

Anyone else getting sick of their sin? (Raises hand) Hello!

It is not just a humbling thing, it makes me think of what Paul has said about it too.

Romans 7:19 sums up well just how frustrating and seemingly hopeless sin feels. It says: For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

It paints a picture of things we might do and over time we will hate it and avoid it though we seem to lose the battle to sins.

I already shared my own sin problem in an earlier month. I had shared about it being one of my biggest regrets in life.

But believe it or not, this is something that can be overcome with the help of the Lord!

We need to realize just what our hearts if we focus on things we shouldn’t are seen to God.

He doesn’t like it. It offends Him! Maybe that will help us to feel convicted about things that we do that we are better off without.

But have hope that Jesus paid for that sin already, long ago. Isn’t that also a great reason to walk away?

We must come to the “cross” in prayer, confess what we did and also ask God to revive our life to Him.

We should praise God that because of the cross and that Jesus died for our sins and rose again showing power even over death we should no longer have those sins in our lives anymore..!

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9 NKJV

To be forgiven by God through Jesus is such a wonderful relief. And to live for His sake is a reason to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit until the day Christ returns. Amen.

Devotions Life like Light 7/9/21

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Had a nice dream last night. At least that was good, haha. Seemed to do something to do with me being a servant of God.

Sometimes the hardest things to do are the very things that go against our nature, the things we are used to doing!

To live for goodness that is in God through His Son Jesus is like a struggle with our sin. At least I have many times felt this way, where we know now what we had done before was wrong but it just seems too tempting to not give in to it again.

Even if we avoid what we were once used to doing though we still sin! There is something about our nature since the fall of Adam that which we still have the sinner’s life but in the case of following Jesus we just won’t do the old stuff it seems anymore.

And that is a blessing to live in the holy Spirit of the Father. But life in Christ will also involve leading others towards the life of Christ.

And some of those things involve forgiving people who have done wrong to you.

Yes it is tough but it seems that though it is something we won’t want to do in our stubbornness while happening to be in the walk in Christ, it is an action we must do!

In the last part of Luke 6:37 it says “Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

While that verse mentions many things involved in the ones who want to follow God (I hope to reference this in more depth some other time hopefully!) I want to focus on this part.

It seems with people I know it is a huge carnal idea to not forgive.

People don’t like it. I used to struggle with it, especially with people I apparently thought were not as good as myself, which was wrong. “But they did that to me, why should I forgive them..?!”

But forgiveness is something God wants us to do. Maybe one day those people will see the change in us and want to follow Christ. Would you want to see people you think might never know the Lord to one day do that? That is my hope too!

Proverbs 3 also describes something that reflects something we must not do though we could be used to the latter: To trust in what we may not “see.”

Proverbs 3:5 states: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding”

That means putting complete and total trust in what we might not notice or see. We must trust and depend on what He wants us to do. Not only that, we must be sensitive to the holy spirit.

We must as we live and have fun in life think of what in our hearts is what we should do for Him. We must be “in tune” to God’s will and seek what He would want over what we might expect in life, say working endlessly to one day get a huge house and be extremely rich.

Do you follow God? I hope to live well but I don’t know or want to imagine having a ton of money like upper-class rich people. I bet I would do nothing but worry about how much I have every week for the rest of my life, haha!

Nope, I don’t think I’d want that. My opinion though.

It’s okay if you one day live well. But if you want to follow the Lord are you giving things and taking time for others to be a servant for Christ? Do you care about who you know over how much is left in your accounts at the bank?

Live for His goodness.

We must also tell of Christ and His impact in our lives. Proverbs continues on with a second sentence closely linked to the first by a semicolon. Proverbs 3:6:

In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

So should we credit Him for the amazing things that have happened in our lives? Do you have an amazing story that only Jesus could have done within it all in your life?

We should acknowledge Him as He will be known and glorified and we will continue to seek out His will as others want to find out what this life is all about.

We need Christ to direct our way through life, otherwise there are some very bad ways, directions to go.

Jesus also told His first followers about the important aspects of life for God, His Father.

Jesus (told) his followers that they will be the ones to carry his light forth into the dark places of the world and the human heart. Source: connectusfund.org

(Sorry, I do a lot of internet searching. Usually though it’s not a full piece of the source, hope this one is part of something good!)

This is describing context to what Jesus was doing when He shared this which was told in the book of Matthew:

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:14

Do you see your life in all of these aspects of following Christ? You might not want to do all of this stuff right away but know that God does life-changing things in people who simply follow His commands.

And He will bless our lives in ways we might never see coming! All because of grace and living in tune to God’s will through His Son. Amen.

Devotions 6/21/21

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Don’t know if I should go to e. r. right away as it will take forever to get things done with my doctor. I like that office less and less now to be honest. Feels like they care that I make another appointment more than actually wondering what’s going on with me…!

This one will have three seemingly random verses, from three different books of the bible:

They collectively will come from Proverbs, Isaiah, and one verse from Psalms. The latter will be the main verse!

In all things, who should we put our full trust in? Can we stop shouting about nonsense and know there is something beyond all our understanding…?

And who can help us in times of trouble? Real problems. “Good” people? Maybe something like the “Man upstairs?”

It’s easy to think that something like “that” is too far away to help us. We have long ago made ourselves so corrupt with sin since Adam’s fall.

Should we see God as something high in the clouds or accessible to ones here and now? Too often the former is portrayed more often in media like tv shows where God is either inaccessible or even that He is not like the God those Christian people claim and portray a blasphemous version: Did God make a mistake when He did things? Or how about if God is really holy, or is He just some “jerk” like the rest of us…?

We always with harsh statements like that will actually reflect the person’s heart. Can we claim something like that is true….? It isn’t because it is not the God of truth in the bible.

We must let go of our old assumptions about the God who cares and deeply loves us and not only showed that by giving us His Son as a sacrifice for our sin but He will guide us through anything even if it a times “feels” like he isn’t there…!

We must remember that He is God. Feelings come and go but He is still the same!

He is God, of all else we should let go like what we thought God was before we knew Him…. even things from the past we might keep thinking could possibly still be true but goes against the knowledge of God’s Word.

To follow God’s Word is serious stuff, ladies and gents!

For example I once had a belief that went against God’s Word (I will share more on that on a future “testimony” about trusting in something that is not us or other beliefs). Was it an interesting idea? Yes. But was it really “truth“…? Umm….. yeah it wasn’t, haha….

It is hard to trust in something that doesn’t seem to really be there. You have to find it first in your heart by the love of Jesus.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart Proverbs 3:5

We can’t just go halfway with trust. I’ve done that before. I have had personal, let’s say, “comfortabilities” where I thought in a way, But I kinda still like my old self; I don’t want to completely abandon it!

That is an example of the heart not wanting to trust… and that is not good.

We must believe that what he’s got is all we, in a way, will need!

You might stay poor though. There may still be challenges within the church body and with people’s lives. Don’t believe people on the tv that say we will blessed with riches if we follow Christ.

That is a sinful trap by the televangelists. They also avoid talking about sin too (most of them anyway, not all…!)

What Christ died for is not just for he world but for the sin of the people within it. Not just some sins or the only ones we think are accessible… but all sin!

And if we put our full trust in God’s Son He will take care of us. Like a path we have yet to have trodden, it is a new one! but it will be worht it if you follow Him and this new path.

I am he who will sustain you. Isaiah 46:4

If we believe that God not only died for what people claim He died for we also must remember He died for your sin as well.

And yes, all of it. How comforting just is the thought of that!

Your very sin in your heart Jesus loved you so much He died for it too. Because He deeply loves with a love that is more than skin deep.

And don’t listen to the seeming bunch of Christians that will judge and make statements that are rocky. They do bring at least conviction but to shout that people are going to hell before ones get to see what they are like is not right.

I believe that if a person condemns a sinner before they get to know them deserves hell just as much as the person that they are judging!

Ones must first love before they will seek out ones in His love.

But ones who struggle must also know that assumptions they have about the Christian faith must also know they could be assumptions or just how the world sees them.

We must not think we know what the church is actually before we actually get to understand what “houses” it.

Which all in all it houses the holy spirit. It is something so mysterious but given to all people long ago because of what Jesus said would be left to impact not just His people the Jewish but the Gentiles and the non-believers.

It was left firstly for the first ones to want to know Him.

So what does the church have?

Do you want to find out today? It is love. A love beyond all human understanding.

We must be quiet and know that He could one day have us as a part of Him and a part of His Way:

Be still and know that I am God ~Psalm 46:10

Do you want to know that He is God today…?

Let’s pray:

Father God, the way you have been portrayed the past many years I realize was strange. But I think I understand the truth. Can you really show me a way that I can follow now? I want this holy spirit in my life. I realize it was left because after Jesus died on the cross for my sin, it was left for the people after Jesus left the earth bodily. He died on the cross because he not only loved the world but also ME TOO. I want to live for You totally and fully. I want to trust in You with all my heart and accept this gift because I want to live for You and only You and not what I used to think of. And I know now Jesus was here but He is one day coming again. Help me live my life. Thank you Jesus. Amen.

Have you prayed that prayer? May you be proud of what Jesus has done in your life today! Thank you Lord for the privilege of prayer… 🙂 God bless you.