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.

You Are Equipped to Handle the Pressure

 

Hebrews 13:5; Don't love money; be satisfied with what you have.  For God has said, "I will never fail you. I will never abandon you."

A young Christian believer told me about that she had counseled a fellow college student that was having issues with his family at home. With the pressures of going to school, working and trying to provide for his young son, he started to feel overwhelmed. The load of responsibilities were weighing on him, and he was tempted to do things that would not be good for him or his son. I was surprised at how blunt the young believer addressed the situation with him. 

She told him,  “You’re a man of God, and He has equipped you to handle much more pressure than this. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and let him lead you every day, so that we won't do ruin your life by making poor choices. You’ve got to gut-up, be strong and pray so that the Lord can help you figure things out!”

I thought to myself, Wow, I don’t think I was that bold and gutsy when I was her age.  But I was even more impressed with the boldness and confidence of the Word of God that she exuded in her conversation. This is the kind of brazen confidence we have to instill not only in our young Christian folks but also the veteran believers out here today, can be a lot more persuasive with winning more lost souls for God’s Kingdom.

Galatians 6:1-3; Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.  And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.  2; Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.  3; If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself.  You are not that important.

God wants His children to know how power-packed they already are and that He has equipped us with the tenacity, strength and courage to go out in the world with confidence ready to face whatever challenges or obstacles that we may come up against.

How comforting it is to know that when you call out, God will comfort and protect us.  He is our defender, comforter and shield from the evils of this world, and He’s not like human beings that will fail us every time – God can’t fail us. He watches over us through people in our lives, or any means necessary. And we don’t ever have to worry that help will not come, for He is always with us. Just like we can never take our eyes off of Him, He doesn’t take His eyes off of us. 

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 Equipped to Handle the Pressure”, 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.

God Guarantees Victory

 2 Corinthians 1:3-5(NLT)

“3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.”

Everyone has troubles – and I’m sure you can name a few off the top of your head. We all need help, advice or comfort at some point. God is merciful in our times of trouble, and because of His amazing grace, we can comfort and uplift others.

 

God has given us the authority through His love to be able to pour out love and kindness to other people. It is especially meaningful to be a conduit of His love towards those that are enduring a troubling season in their lives. Take the Apostle Paul’s example for instance. He understood that his mission was to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to instruct the church in righteousness, but Paul had a past. Before his Road to Damascus experience, he actually persecuted Christians. He faced what many of us face today, in that people who knew his past tried to use it to hold him back.

The church at Corinth had a lot of problems. They hadn’t renewed their minds to God’s Word in important areas of the faith. Division among them crept in. Following his call by the Lord Jesus Christ to guide the church in righteousness and Godliness, Paul wrote the Corinthians an epistle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It was sent to sternly correct them. Some changed their ways after receiving this correction, but others strongly turned against him. Some even said that he was not a real Apostle of Jesus Christ.

There can be no question that Paul suffered persecution and endured things many of us living today couldn’t endure. As he wrote the Second Epistle of Corinthians under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul knew and had experienced the comfort of God through tribulation personally, and this is one of the reasons he was able to offer this same comfort to other believers. Paul knew God’s power, and this gave him the confidence to minister, serve, and help others. We are not sufficient in and of ourselves. Paul wrote in 2Corinthians 3:5 that our sufficiency comes from God. Our Heavenly Father empowers us through His tremendous love, and this very same love gives us the strength to encourage, comfort, and help others.

It’s no question that all of us will go through seasons in our lives when we endure pain and suffering. Like Paul, we all make poor judgements and bad choices. Many of us start out with a healthy appetite for living God’s way, but we will sometimes allow relationships with a significant person to throw us off the path. By the third or fourth month of dating, self-control goes straight out of the window. This is the condition many Christians find themselves in. They succumb to the pressures of life and the flesh; they give themselves over to sinful behavior. I’ve heard many of my single Christian friends say how much they regret actions like these, because their sinful actions caused so many problems, and my friends wished they had been more patient while dating. 

Our God will make sure that we never lose out when we patiently endure, no matter how challenging things may seem. He will reward us for living His way and by following the example of Jesus Christ. Paul knew this. He had experienced the power, grace, and mercy of God continually. Paul had a problem that was so troublesome to him that he called this problem a throne in his flesh. He prayed to God about it, and God told him in 2Corinthians 12:8 (NLT), “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.”

God knows we’re going to make mistakes, but He never stops loving us; therefore, we must not allow our mistakes to keep us from loving and helping others. We’ve got work to do, and we shouldn’t let anything keep us from being a blessing to the Lord’s people. God told Paul to lean on His grace, and this is precisely what we must do. God’s power works best in weakness. We must remember this no matter what we’re going through, no matter how much we are tested. Things can become bad very quickly, but tribulation should press us to draw closer to God because we have no other help but Him. We must lean on Him and remember that it’s in the struggle that we’ll see the overwhelming strength and power of God’s love.■

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.

“God Guarantees Victory”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Our Protective Shade

 

Psalm 121:1-5(NLT)
“1 I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth! 3 He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber. 4 Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. 5 The Lord himself watches over you! The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.”

It was movie night for my daughter’s senior class, and a group of her friends were getting together to hang out. I typically didn’t mind when she went out on the weekends because she’s a good kid, and she’s pretty good at keeping her curfew. My only request was that she called me when she arrived at her destination. It was my way of knowing she was ok, but this particular evening, I didn’t keep my end of the deal. I woke up at 2:00am and realized I had fallen asleep. Immediately I looked at my phone, and when I saw the time, checking on my daughter was the first thing on my mind. To my relief, she had gotten home already and said to me, “Mom, I texted you several times but when I didn’t hear from you, I figured you were asleep. I got home a few hours ago.”

Despite my best intentions, I fell asleep and these things happen. As parents, we sometimes miss the mark. But this will never, ever happen with our Heavenly Father, and Psalm 121 beautifully illustrates this truth. God never falls asleep on us. He’s our constant Protector, and He will forever watch over us.

1Peter 5:6-7(NLT) says, “6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” We’re covered under God’s mighty power, and although we know this as parents, many of us will still put a lot of unnecessary pressure on ourselves. We love our children and want to do what’s best for them. God has this same desire. We’re all His kids, and He wants the best for all of us, all the time. He desires us to succeed on every level, and He wants it more for us than we want it for ourselves and for the people we love. He is such a loving and awesome God that He tells us not to worry and to relinquish the anxiety that comes with all that pressure. He’s got us! He’ll keep our families under His protection and care.

Our responsibility is to have faith in God. We try to handle everything on our own, but we don’t know the future. We can’t see what’s coming, nor can we control anything. God is the One who holds our tomorrows and knows our futures. He tells us to give all our worries, fears, and anxiety to Him, because that is how we demonstrate our love for God. Our faith conveys our understanding of His mighty power, and it shows we’re convinced that He is able and willing to take care of us all. In Philippians 4:6-7(NLT), through the Apostle Paul, God tells us, “6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.”

The peace of God is real sisters, and God tells us in Colossians 3:15 to let it rule our hearts and to be thankful. This is a choice. We can choose to be full of worry, or we can choose to let God’s peace rule over us instead of fear. We can have peace in the middle of the storms of life because our God has all power in His hands, and He loves us. Philippians 4:7 tells us that the peace of God passes all understanding. No matter how things look or what is going on in our lives, our Heavenly Father never sleeps. He has promised to stand beside us as our protective shade. So, we can rest in His protection and care for our families as we all continue to live by faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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.

"Our Protective Shade" 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.

 

Close the Door to the Wrong Paths

1 Peter 5:6-11(NLT)
6So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

8Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 9Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.

10In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. 11All power to him forever! Amen.

Jesus Christ declared in John 10:10 that the devil’s purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy, but our Savior tells us that he came to the earth to give us a more than abundant life. As born-again believers, we must be overjoyed regarding what God has done for us through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Likewise, we cannot not be ignorant regarding what our Master Jesus has told us about God’s archenemy, the devil. We should be under no illusions when it pertains to the tricks of the enemy, because he concocts plots against God’s children. If we are not walking in the Spirit and have not read about satan’s tricks in God’s Word, we risk giving the devil an open door to walk into our lives and wreak havoc.

1John 1:5(NLT) declares, “God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” Our Heavenly Father is glorious beyond glory. He deserves all praise and honor, and He is good all the time. There is no darkness in God, and His love illuminates our paths and causes us to be lifted high where we can live through His light. When we look at our own lives and what we go through on a daily basis, we might not feel that we can attain this life of love and light that God has made available to us. Although we want to be joyful and content, we can’t reconcile it with the difficult times we face.

Strategy One – Have faith in God

Jesus Christ told us in God’s Word that no one is exempt from feeling pain, heartache or disappointment. Challenges are a part of life on earth, but he also told us in John 16:33 that he has overcome the world, and he made a way for us to do the same. From the very beginning, God revealed through Adam and Eve that doubt is one of the enemy’s main tricks, and he plants lies in our minds to get us to doubt God’s willingness to bless us. God is love, and everything He does is done through His overwhelming love for us all. Love and goodness are His nature, and if we believe anything contrary to this, we are not believing in who God is, and this is an offense to Him. Jesus Christ told us in Mark 11:22 to have faith in God. This is our greatest defense against the tricks of the enemy.

Doubt is the wrong path. It is the opposite of faith in God. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith, it is impossible to please our Heavenly Father, because anyone that comes to Him must believe that He exists, and they must also believe that He is a Rewarder to those that diligently seek Him. God has given us the best through Jesus Christ. He didn’t spare His only begotten Son but gave him up to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. Romans 8:32(NLT) declares, “Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Heavenly Father is happy to bless us, and His goal is for us to become like His Son, Jesus Christ, and to stand strong in faith through any obstacles and adversity.

Strategy Two – Don’t be Anxious

Philippians 4:6-7(NLT) says, “6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” God tells us not to be filled with anxiety because it is the wrong path, and it will not lead to God’s solutions. When we are worried and anxious, we are not trusting Him as we should. Worrying about the issues of life plays right into the devil’s hands. It’s fuel that allows him to continue to mess with our minds so that we won’t focus on the goodness of God.

Focusing on the goodness of God is a choice, and it is the best one. It’s puts a shield of God’s peace around our hearts and minds. No problem is too big for God, and our number one go-to when we face any trouble is to demonstrate we believe His Word. We do this by immediately going to Him in prayer. We are to pray about everything, and then we must allow our hearts to swell with gratitude as we remember how He has blessed us in the past. Through our faith, we must anticipate the victory He’s going to give us and rest in the peace that only He can give.

Strategy Three – Change the way you think

Our minds are the battleground for our souls. If we relinquish control of our thoughts to the devil, we are losing the battle over our souls, and that is the devil’s whole game plan, to steal and destroy our souls. Wrong and negative thoughts will cause us to head down the path of darkness, and this is indeed the wrong path. Jesus Christ came to set us free from darkness. Galatians 5:1(NKJV) commands, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Again, this is a choice. We can stand strong in the victory of Christ by changing the way we think, or we can be defeated through a mindset of worry and doubt. God is always rooting for us to live strong through the power and authority of Christ!

Victory is rooted in the mindset of Christ. God tells us in Ephesians 4:23 to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. And to be renewed in our minds is to line up our thoughts so they are in harmony with the mind of Christ. Our Master Jesus never worried. He trusted God in all things. If he had not done this, if he had not placed total and complete trust in God to back his every move, he could never have accomplished God’s plan of redemption for the entire world.

Through Jesus Christ, we are not weaklings. Romans 8:37 declares we are more than conquerors through him. You and I don’t belong to ourselves; we belong to God. Everything in the world belongs to Him, and He is being generous in sharing all these wonderful blessings with us. God created us because He wanted a family. We are His children and He is committed to care for us because that is what He wanted all along. 1John 4:4(NKJV) says, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” Through His Word, the example of Jesus Christ, and the gift of Holy Spirit that lives within every true believer, God has given us strategies to overcome the tricks and plots of satan. Heavenly Father tells us in James 4:7 that we must submit our whole lives to Him through Jesus Christ, and when we do this, we will resist the devil and he will flee.■

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.

“Close the Door to the Wrong Paths”, 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.