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Bringing your Potential to Light

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How to Live Worry Free

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What are you worried about? What change are you hoping for?

Anxious worrying involves fear. You can be afraid of something bad happening. You can also be afraid of losing something valuable to you.

The more you focus on what you can’t control, the more anxious you’ll become. The more you live in fear, the more discouraged you’ll become.

Anxious fear brings depression,
but a life-giving word of encouragement
can do wonders to restore joy to the heart.

Proverbs 12:25 TPT

The only way to live worry free is to give up your attempts to control the outcomes of your life.

This doesn’t mean giving up on life. You can love God with everything you have, but still accept that this life rarely goes exactly the way you want it to go.

Encouragement is Real

There’s always a greater reality beyond what you see immediately in front of you. Encouraging words never need to be empty promises.

Maybe you are caught up in fear. Maybe you aren’t allowing a life-giving word of encouragement to reach your heart.

Living intentionally by telling God you want to be more hopeful. Agree that you want to open your heart to encouragement.

Imagine God encouraging you. Which of the following would be most life-giving?

  • You are unconditionally loved.
  • You are safe and secure.
  • You are wanted in relationship.
  • You are significant and needed.
  • You have a place in my kingdom-house.

Fortunately for us believers, all of the above are true. Then why don’t they often feel true?

None of those statements require that your circumstances are always pleasant or desirable. They are spiritual truths more than they are earthly or temporal facts. Spiritual truths last forever; circumstances are temporary. Don’t confuse the two. When you believe your circumstances are forever and truth is temporary, you will understandably be afraid. So if you’re struggling, ask yourself which way you’re believing.

Spiritual truths remain true, even when they don’t feel true. Who you are (all the good that God made you to be) remains true, even when you don’t feel good about yourself.

Wounds are Real, But God is More Real

When terrible, painful things happen, we are supposed to feel sad, but not discouraged forever. If you lose a loved one, develop a serious medical condition, or face humiliating rejection, you will feel it, and you should.

No doubt that life circumstances can be obstacles to faith. No doubt there is plenty to be sad about. Just not sad forever. The reality of who God is brings joy to the heart.

Wounds are real, but God is more real. Open your heart to life-giving encouragement.

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Increase Your Faith

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“I’m not sure I have enough faith to make it through this.”

“Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5).

“I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

When you go through a personal crisis your faith is tested. Your friends might say, “just have more faith.” Taken as a cliché, it’s not only not helpful, it’s annoying.

Seek Genuine Faith

Just have more faith: this kind of faith is all about your effort – as in you’re not trying hard enough. If you hear “have more faith” and groan or feel even more discouraged, you’re focusing on a powerless faith – a faith devoid of God. You might feel cynical: What good is faith in God if it feels like He has abandoned me?

Have faith in God: this kind of faith is all about God. It’s genuine because God is the object of the faith. Genuine faith believes and trusts. It’s not about how hard you’re trying.

Your primary work is to believe in God. This means something different than “just have more faith,” which is useless because it lacks belief. With genuine faith you believe and are able to walk forward in the power of what you believe (see James 2:14-26 for more on this).

Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

John 6:29 NLT

Belief Comes From God

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

Ephesians 2:8 NLT

For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.”

John 6:44, 47 NLT

The power is in the believing. What should you believe? Your primary work is to believe God is who He says He is. God is good. God is your source of eternal life.

How to Increase Your Faith

I want more faith, don’t you?

You can’t run a marathon or even to your street corner without food. Likewise, you can’t finish a spiritual race without a vibrant faith.

How can you strengthen and grow your faith?

So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Romans 10:17 NLT

To strengthen your faith, you feed on God’s words. You meditate on God’s truth. You consume God’s words and allow them to become a part of you. How positive and hopeful you are depends on how much you reinforce your belief in the Good News about Christ.

If you’re a believer, then you have the faith already, but for it to do you much good, you have to exercise it regularly. Get your running clothes out of the closet and put them on.

Take the time throughout your day to be aware of your belief: I believe. I have faith. My faith is real. God is real. God is my help. I trust God. Then move forward confidently with all you have going on in your life. God is with you.

For more on increasing your faith, consider:
www.desiringgod.org
www.crosswalk.com
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Nothing Is Impossible

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Soon maybe an asteroid will collide with Earth. Soon maybe people will walk on Mars. These would be historical, once in a lifetime events.

I don’t believe in chance. You can’t witness a once in a lifetime event by dumb luck. What you experience, when you experience it, has a purpose. God has your life planned out, but your every step counts (Proverbs 16:9, 19:21, 20:24; Psalm 37:23; 139:16; Jeremiah 10:23)!

When you forget your way and all else fails, the Gospel never fails. You can completely lose at life, but be the supreme winner (Matthew 10:39).

Nothing is impossible… for God (Luke 1:37). An angel of God said this speaking of the virgin birth. When life seems hopeless… when only a miracle will do… God is more than capable.

When you’re guilty, wrong, suffering… when you’re at your worst… when you’ve reached bottom… you’ve reached the bedrock of the Gospel. You need not sink any further.

Where the Gospel is concerned, nothing is impossible. You can return to the event of Jesus’s sacrifice and receive cleansing and forgiveness. You can always start over refreshed. Every day can be new.

Don’t Give Up

You need to understand your past, so you can learn from it and find healing, but you need not let your past hold you back from God’s best for you today.

If you give up, you might miss what God is doing. Now is the time to stay alert (1 Peter 5:8). Wait expectantly. Your waiting and watching is not in vain. All that God promises will be fulfilled. Be prepared for once in a lifetime moments.

Consider the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). Five were wise and five were foolish. Five were prepared and five were lazy. God can change your circumstances at any moment. Are you ready?

If you live expectantly everyday, you can start to see everyday as a once in a lifetime moment.

Future posts will expand on the idea that with God, nothing is impossible.

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No Guts No Glory

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Do you ever feel like just being you is too risky? The cost of authenticity might be rejection, but the payoff brings a bit of heaven down to earth.

Last week I wrote about the benefits of imagining what heaven will be like. I asked, “How would knowing the best possible interpretation impact the way you live today?” One person’s answer demonstrates the shift from despair to hope that I aimed for. He gave me permission to share his answer:

I enjoyed the post you wrote on Heaven. Thanks for posing the question. It gave me a chance to think about what the rest of my life could look like and how it could begin to move in that direction even now.

Knowing what heaven is like and who I am as God’s finished product would change the way I live out the rest of my days on earth.

During a recent checkup, my doctor said, “You look pretty good for someone who almost died a year ago.” Coming face-to-face with death has me thinking more about how I want to be remembered.

If I knew for sure what God plans for me in heaven, I could risk being that person more on earth no matter what others thought of me because I would know it pleased God. I should be doing that anyway, but there is always a struggle to know if I’m being the real me.

I want to:

  • be more unselfish, putting others’ needs before mine.
  • be more transparent about my feelings and not concerned about how that would look to others.
  • speak what is in my heart; I wouldn’t be unkind, but I would be free to disagree with others and risk being rejected and isolated from others.
  • be more vulnerable to love others and help them no matter what it cost me emotionally or materially.
  • be more humble, living out my purpose of bringing glory to God and doing things that have eternal value, not just what had meaning for my time on earth.

Acting in this way would bring more meaning to my remaining time here, leave an eternal mark, and make something in my life worth remembering to those I leave behind.

Imagining heaven’s best helps me trust God more (I can see why He led me through what He did) and value what He values. I want to see with a better perspective what is really important in this life and also what matters so little because it won’t be coming with me into heaven.

How about you? What will your life look like if you live with no regrets? No guts no glory. When you risk being who God made you to be, God is glorified. AND… when you share in Christ’s suffering today, you will also share in in glory (Romans 8:17).

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What Heaven Will Be Like

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What is your best possible interpretation of what heaven will be like?

More importantly though, how would knowing the best possible interpretation impact the way you live today? How would your quality of life improve?

Can We Know What Heaven Will Be Like?

I like to spend time thinking about heaven because it lifts my spirit to remember that the difficulties of present-day life won’t last forever. God has something much better planned. By reading only 1 Corinthians 2:9, it’s easy to believe that no one can understand how great heaven will be.

But it is just as the Scriptures say,
“What God has planned
    for people who love him
is more than eyes have seen
    or ears have heard.
It has never even
    entered our minds!”

1 Corinthians 2:9 (CEV)

But, The Living Bible (TLB) translation communicates the full idea in context:

That is what is meant by the Scriptures which say that no mere man has ever seen, heard, or even imagined what wonderful things God has ready for those who love the Lord.

1 Corinthians 2:9 (TLB)

No mere man has ever. A “mere man” is one who isn’t connected to God by the Holy Spirit. If you have the Spirit of God living inside of you, then you aren’t a mere man.

God’s Spirit has shown you everything. His Spirit finds out everything, even what is deep in the mind of God.

1 Corinthians 2:10 (CEV)

The TLB drives home the point further:

But we know about these things because God has sent his Spirit to tell us, and his Spirit searches out and shows us all of God’s deepest secrets.

1 Corinthians 2:10 (TLB)

You can know more about heaven than you realize. What is your best possible interpretation of what heaven will be like? What is the Holy Spirit telling you about heaven?

What We Know About Heaven

I like John 14:2 because I can picture a permanent home that God has for me.

Revelation 21:4 and 22:3 assure me that pain and suffering will be no more.

With sin and suffering gone, what will remain? You might feel like your current life isn’t worth living, but what about a perfect heaven? Will there be anything worth doing? Will you be bored?

It’s hard not to think about what you feel most deprived of on earth instead of what will be most positive in heaven. To get around this, try asking what heaven will be like at two distinct times.

First, when you are at your worst. If you’ve exercised for a while without access to water, you’d equate heaven to a glass of water. Before you object, consider how much Esau gave up when he was famished (see Genesis 25).

Now, let’s assume you’re well fed, had a good night’s sleep, and you’re in a good mood. You’re happy. What do you imagine heaven will be like? It will still be way better.

Even though I don’t know specifically what we’ll be doing, I know we won’t be bored. God has something better planned. Your afterlife days will always be better than your best present-day life.

Without sin to distract us and sabotage our progress, we’ll focus on building something bigger than ourselves. As Christ’s bride, we can partner with Christ to accomplish something greater than the best of things we have now.

Are you frustrated with having to make decisions all the time? Some decisions are heart-breaking because there’s no optimal option – only the lessor of two evils. But in heaven such difficult decisions won’t exist.

I’m looking forward to heaven where I can have my cake and eat it too. I won’t have to worry about the FOMO (the fear of missing out). In heaven, we’ll never be out of step (out of unity) with God and His purposes. We’ll have time for both community and individual interests.

Heaven will be like a multi-layered cake. We’ll be able to taste all the layers at the same time in a perfect mixture. The reality of heaven will allow us to experience true:

  1. Devotion: we can worship without rebellion.
  2. Identity: we can create without obstacles.
  3. Productivity: we can serve without fatigue.
  4. Intimacy: we can fellowship without fear or shame.
  5. Understanding: we can learn without confusion.
  6. Peace: we can rest without worry. (a)

For now you’ll need to find some way to balance your life. Sometimes, you can eat half your cake, and sometimes you might not get any at all. But however much cake you have, you can be satisfied with that, especially when you can have some idea of what having the whole piece must taste like.

How are you struggling to keep your life balanced? What aspect of heaven do you day-dream about? What is your best possible interpretation of what heaven will be like? Share your picture of heaven in a comment.

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(a) adapted from a list found on https://www.biblestudytools.com

Security Leads to Trust

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Even in heaven, we won’t ever know everything there is to know. We might as well get used to the idea during this life.

Sometimes I think life would be so much better if I knew everything. Having an explanation is good, but at some point, too much knowledge only complicates matters. If you don’t need to know something to live a happy, productive life, then it’s probably not necessary.

Seeking out wisdom doesn’t result in you having all the answers. You can be wise and not have all the answers. There’s always more to learn. In fact, it is the fool who thinks no further knowledge or learning is needed (see Proverbs 10:14 and 12:15).

To the one who has everything, what motive is there to act?

To the one who feels completely well, what motive is there to seek a doctor?

To the one who knows everything, what motive is there to seek wisdom?

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.

It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.

God is praised for being mysterious; rulers are praised for explaining mysteries.

We honor God for what he conceals; we honor kings for what they explain.

Proverbs 25:2 ESV, NLT, CEV, GNT
You can seek knowledge forever and never know it all. But you can know love in one instant and it can last a lifetime (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-13). Click To Tweet

A balance is needed between pursuing knowledge and trusting God. You can enjoy pursuing God and all His mysteries. But don’t let yourself become miserable in the present moment because you don’t understand all that God is doing.

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

Finding God doesn’t mean you will find all the answers. Find God means finding His loving arms so that you can experience the warmth of His love. When you are secure in love, a lot of other details don’t matter any more. When you can trust God to guide you, you don’t have to worry about the condition and direction of the road.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

What is the condition of your road? Maybe the road is scary, but that doesn’t mean you have to be scared. Ask God for a touch of His love. Ask God for wisdom. Then trust God with whatever road is before you.

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