God’s Love Is On Your Side

 

2Corinthians 12:9-10(NLT)

9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

A friend of mine got a phone call from her daughter who is a sophomore in college. She’s six-hours away from home, and my friend had a lot of reservation about her daughter choosing a school that far away. Initially, my friend thought it was another weekly check-in call, but this time she noticed her daughter’s voice was a bit different than before. Her normal bubbly, high-pitched voice saying “Hi mom, I just called to hear your voice and say hello!” was replaced with a squeaky and shaky, “Hi mom, I hope you don’t hate me after you hear what I have to tell you.”

Her daughter was six-months pregnant by a football player. She was going to have to come home and finish college later. Questions consumed her mom’s mind. Repeatedly, she asked herself, “What did I do wrong? Did I give her too much freedom? Did I fail at preparing her for ‘real life’? Should I have put my foot down about her choosing to be so far from home?” Both mom and daughter felt downtrodden and overwhelmed by the situation. Neither of them was sure about what to do next, and the thought of praying and leaning on the Lord was not on their minds.

Our darkest valley can be unveiled in the unpredictability of life. The unexpected can bring us to our knees, and one mistake can change our lives forever. The decisions and choices we need to make when facing uncertainty can cause us to feel overwhelmed with sadness and fear. However, our faith in God makes all the difference. We can take comfort in the reality that whether we’re feeling physically, emotionally, or mentally weak, we must trust in God that we can be strengthened in Him through the Lord Jesus Christ. We are God's children, and this means we have authority through our Lord and Savior to overcome obstacles and challenges. We can invite his power and ability into the situations and circumstances we face, no matter what they are.

Philippians 2:9-11(NLT) tells us, “9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This verse is telling us about the power and glory of our precious Lord and Savior! Because our Heavenly Father has elevated Christ, no one compares to him, and he uses his power to help us. Jesus gave his life on the cross to pay for the sins of all people. He gave up his divine privileges, left the throne of God, and came to earth to complete God’s mission. He was born as a human being and experienced all the trouble, suffering, and joys that human beings experience. He even experienced death on the cross and showed us that even death could not conquer him.

Jesus dying on the cross was an incredible act of love. He said in John 15:13(NLT), “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” When we accept his love in our hearts, and believe in his sacrifice and resurrection, a spiritual transaction occurs. Our faith in his life, death, and resurrection causes a rebirth of our human spirit. Our human spirits come alive to God in a way they couldn’t have before. Jesus Christ is the door to our Almighty God and His gift of eternal life, and when we enter the door, we walk into life in the Spirit. In John 10:9(NKJV), Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”

The passage in 2Corinthians 12:9-10 affirms that God shows His strength in our weakness, because the power of Christ can work through us, but we must place our faith and trust in God. As His Children, we don’t have to be afraid of what’s to come, and we do not have to be consumed with anxiety over challenging situations. Hebrews 13:5 declares that God will never leave or forsake us. He is with us always! Trusting in this truth will make the difference between being spiritually equipped to handle change and problems or being overwhelmed with the issues of life and lost in a world of confusion. 

Isaiah 40:29(NLT) proclaims, “He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.” God wants us to depend totally on Him, and this is true even when we have made mistakes and gotten ourselves in a world of trouble. He knows we are going to have mess-ups, mishaps, and hiccups in life. We can’t handle this stuff on our own, and we shouldn’t be prideful and think we can. God is our Source and Sufficiency! He is our Refuge and is forever on our side. Through the Spirit of Christ working in us, Romans 8:28 assures that He will cause all things to work together for our good. This is God’s promise, and He will never break it. Trust Him with your whole heart, because God cannot fail!■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. New King James Version (NKJV)

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“God Is on Your Side”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

When I Am Weak, God is Strong

 

II Corinthians 12:9; But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Our darkest valley can be found in how unpredictable life can be.  Whether you’re feeling physically weak in your body, emotionally or even spiritually, we have the power to change it. We are God's children, this means we have the authority through Jesus Christ, to handle any circumstance that come our way.  But being prepared and strengthened in God’s word is key, it can make the difference between becoming lost in a world of change or being equipped to handle change. 

As human beings, we think we have it all together, and then our pride gets in the way because none of us wants to feel inadequate. It’s when we feel inadequate that our weakness is revealed.  In your weakness, He is made strong, no matter what you’re going through he never leave us nor forsake us.

Isaiah 40:29,” He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.”

As Children of God, we don’t have to be afraid of what’s to come, nor do we have to fear the unknown, our only requirement is to trust God as He instructs us in the scripture in Psalm 23.  Heavenly Father wants us to know that He is with us always, He will never leave us nor forsake us, in good times and in the bad times.  When we need comfort, He’s with us, when we need protection, He’s right there beside us.

A friend of mine got a phone call from her daughter who is a sophomore in college, six-hours away from home.  She thought it was another weekly check-in call from her daughter but this time she noticed her daughter’s voice was a bit different than before.  Her normal bubbly, high-pitched voice saying “Hi mom, I just called to hear your voice and say hello”, turned into “Hi mom, I hope you don’t hate me after you hear what I have to tell you.” Her daughter was six-months pregnant by a senior football player. She was going to have to come home and finish college later.

All her mom could think about was…what did I do wrong? Did I give her too much freedom, should I have made her go to college at home so she could keep an eye on her? Both mom and daughter felt downtrodden, bewildered and lost at the thought of the unexpected happening. Neither of them knew what to do next and the thought of leaning on the Lord was not the first thought on their minds.

1 John 4:4 declares, Ye are of God little children, and have overcome them:  because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

A lot of Christians don’t handle the unexpected too well.  They clam up and forget about God’s word.  But this is when we have to lean on the Lord, and if you don’t know how something is going to work out, lean on Him even more.  He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.  If you feel like you can do nothing but rely on the grace of God to carry you through, He wants us so dependent on Him.  The Apostle Paul once said “I have this thorn in my flesh but three times I ask God to take it away, but God didn’t take it away.  Pride is what God Lucifer kicked out of Heaven and pride can cause you to not turn to God when you need Him the most.

The irony of weakness, it’s the opportunity for joy, and it’s an opportunity to be strong in the Lord. 

Sometimes, there are many of us that when we feel downtrodden and weak-minded, we just want to give up and throw in the towel on God, but this is the time to press into the Father.  Go further into Him.  Begin to thank Him for bringing you through your difficulty. Thank Him for seeing you through your heartbreak or financial hardship.  This is the time to pull from Heaven what you need. You have the power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on your side. Don’t give up, give-in to Him and win!

You Are Greater Than Your Pain

 

2Corinithians 4:4(NLT)
“Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.”

“I woke up this morning and instantly, without even blinking, heartache and pain hit me before I even opened my eyes. Everyone says that what I feel won’t last long but tell that to my heart and mind. I don’t want to feel broken and hopeless but that’s exactly what feels real to me right now.”

The pain you might be experiencing in your life isn't your destiny in God’s Will. Trust that He has a much better plan for you. Most of us have gone through painful experiences and have dealt with loneliness or heartache at some point. We got through it, and anyone that is dealing with it presently should understand that with the help of our Heavenly Father, they will get through it too. Your emotional well-being is extremely important to God, and His love can bring healing to every area of your life. This will require us to allow His love to enter those dark places within, and in order to witness the newness that He will usher in, we must have faith even when our feelings tell us not to.

Feeling good is very important to a quality existence, but God's Will and commandment is that we put Him first in all things. Putting Him first requires that we place our confidence in His healing power and love above our feelings of doubt, disappointment, and despair. Jesus Christ instructs us in Matthew 6:33(NLT), "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." This isn't a suggestion; it is a direct commandment that keeps us in alignment and harmony with God's plan for our lives. We must trust that God's power and love for us is greater than the problems we face.

In Ephesians 4:23, God tells us to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. This means that you and I have to change the way we think. We must change how we see things. Most of us are taught how to view life from very early on. We learn from our parents or guardians, and we learn from others. In most cases, we are taught to define life by the things we see with our physical eyes. So, if the things that we see with our physical eyes look bad or bleak, we walk away believing that life is bad or bleak. When we become born again and accept the Lord Jesus Christ into our hearts, we can no longer operate this way. Our vision can and must change.

Jesus Christ teaches in John 4:24(KJV), "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Faith is a substance that belongs to God. He used it to create everything we see, and through Jesus Christ, He has given it to us. Through faith, God equips us spiritually so that we can live more abundantly through Jesus Christ, and we can also continue to do good things for His Kingdom. Through faith, we become God's children and have the light of Christ inside us. And as God's children, 2Corinthians 5:7 tells us to walk by faith and not by sight. This is the defining quality of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ; we believe what God says because of our faith in Him. This means that we switch from relying on our physical vision and begin to rely on our spiritual vision.

When the source of our spiritual vision is Jesus Christ, we see what he sees, and all he sees is victory! 1John 5:4(NLT) tells us, "For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith." We have an enemy, the devil, and he wants nothing more than to see God’s children struggling and being in pain throughout life. Our wonderful God doesn't want this for any person. Galatians 5:1(MSG) tells us, “Christ has set us free to live a free life.” This is what God has done for us through His beloved Son. He wants us to walk in the freedom from sin, darkness, and sadness that He has given us through Jesus Christ. God wants our eyes to be open to the tricks of the enemy, so that we will realize that often what we see through our physical eyes isn't the truth. It is a smoke screen to get us to start feeling bad so that we will not trust God and be delivered.

We must see through this and see the truth of our victory in Christ. Through him we are greater than our pain. Turn your eyes to the glorious light of the Gospel. In order to renew your mind, you must reprogram it with the truth. You must read and study God's Word, so that your eyes will be opened and remain that way. Jesus Christ came to earth to make a more than abundant life available to us, but we have to want it for ourselves. Many people have been mistreated and abused by someone they love, and some individuals are still in abusive situations. When we take a step to trust God and free ourselves from darkness, He will respond by helping us to open our hearts to Him so He can help us. Pray that He will do this for you. Be willing to change the way you think. Be courageous and determined to keep the blindfold off your eyes. Be committed to walk by faith and renew your mind so you’ll have the kind of life God wants to give you.■

Scripture quotations marked (MSG) are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“You Are Greater Than Your Pain”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Exposing A Secret Life of Pain

2 Peter 2:7-10(NLT)
"7 But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him 8 Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day.  9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. 10 He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority."

Many of us wake up every day and go about our daily business not realizing that some of the people we work with or whose paths we’ve crossed are in emotional distress. From the bank teller to the person we walked past in the grocery store aisle, some of them have experienced or is currently dealing with emotional or physical abuse. You can’t tell from their faces that they are hiding this secret, and some of them have even learned to mask it with a smile, but the pain can feel so heavy. As an abused person, all you want to do is to be loved and have peace, but the person you love isn’t loving you in a healthy way. They are forcing you to keep a secret that’s hurting you, and this is betraying your higher good.

Not too long ago, people didn’t believe that Christians endured things like domestic violence and abuse, but this isn’t the case. Many Christians find themselves in situations of abuse, and if they’ve not taken the time to grow in their relationship with God, they might think this is what Heavenly Father wants. So, they succumb to the pressures of life, and this keeps them living beneath their privilege. They want to be loved, and because their faith isn’t developed in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are not always strong enough to walk away from mistreatment.

I’ve heard many believers talk about how much they regret the situations they’ve endured because they didn’t know the Word enough to trust completely in God. My heart goes out to them in prayer, because I understand the emotional trauma that some of them have faced. When our weak places take center stage, it can sometimes get the best of us. Some of us even become bitter and angry, because we think God left us to go through our toughest season alone. 

God doesn’t want anyone to suffer. Our God is a loving Father. Hebrews 13:5(NLT) tells us, “Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” Money is very helpful to our daily lives, but some people depend totally on it for their wholeness and happiness. This is what is means to love money. It’s when we depend on money to such a degree that we place a greater trust in that piece of paper than we do in our Creator. This is a monumental mistake. Our Heavenly Father warns us not to do this, because it’s harmful to our relationship with Him. Heavenly Father shows us that money fades away. It’s in your hand one day and out of it the next. He never fades away. He’s with us always and He will never forsake us. He’s telling us to recognize who He is! He is the One True Eternal God, and we must lean on Him completely. He is our Father and Source of all blessings. Everything belongs to Him, and He tells us in Proverbs 3:5 to trust in Him with all our hearts.

For many of us, money isn’t the draw, but a relationship or person is. Instead of trusting in God, many of us place all our trust and love in the person we’re involved with. We forget or ignore that God is our Everything. We are so dependent and consumed with what the person we love is doing or not doing that we spend very little of our time praying and talking to God. We don’t study His Word as we should, and our relationship with Him gets placed on the backburner. So, God doesn’t ever abandon us, but we abandon Him when we are not faithful to honor our relationship with Him the way He requires.

In 2Corinthians 12:9(NLT), God told the Apostle Paul, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” Paul was going through an incredibly difficult time, and he thought God wanted him to endure this pain and to struggle through life, but this isn’t what Heavenly Father wants for any of us. He has given us victory through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and He wants us to have a more than abundant life. God gave Paul a strategy for success. He taught him and teaches us in 2Corinthians 12:9 that we shouldn’t see the problem bigger than the solution. God is the answer to all our problems. There isn’t anything He can’t solve when we trust in Him. 

When we’re living a secret life of abuse, and we don’t want anyone to know that we’re being mistreated, we’re living a life of pain. We become so acclimated to it that some of us don’t remember what life was like before the abuse started. God doesn’t want us hiding away like that. He loves us too much, and His love is powerful! It’s the kind that shines brilliant and bright. It will illuminate a path out of hiding and help us get beyond the pain and trauma of abuse. Heavenly Father is our Rescuer, and He doesn’t want His kids to suffer, be depressed, sad, or without love. Let Him help you live a life free of pain. Come into His glorious light, and He will expose your pain and heal it, so that you never allow anyone to force you into hiding again. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Exposing A Secret Life of Pain”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.