When fear wraps up our heart, we are unnerved and intimidated. We become faint hearted and disheartened…fear preventing us from taking action. As fear wraps up our heart, it destroys our confidence in ourselves…and sadly our confidence in the Lord.
Month: June 2015
Isaiah 35: 3 ” Strengthen your feeble hands…”
Fear will wrap up our arms, making them hang limp at our sides. We then become unable to help ourselves or others. When we are unable to work with our hands, we become unproductive and paltry. Thus fear keeps us from completing the all important work of the Lord that He’s planned for us.
Ezekiel 7:17 “…and every knee will become as weak as water.”
Fear wraps us up and renders us immobile. We are stopped in our tracks…our knees knocking together and even giving way, unable to move. We’re like deer caught in the headlights…panic stricken and frozen in fear. But if we’re paralyzed in fear, we are of no use for the Kingdom…and the devil would like to keep us that way.
Deuteronomy 11:1 ” Love the Lord your God and keep His requirements, His decrees, His Laws, and His commands always.”
The Lord wants us to love Him more than anything and anyone. He also wants us to guard ourselves on how we live and conduct business on a daily basis. For God wants only the very best for us, and by taking responsibility for our actions, we are in alignment with His sovereign principles.
Psalm 68:19 ” Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”
The Lord Jesus Christ is the God of Salvation. He sustains, supports, and carries us…even when we’re unaware of His hand on us. There’s no need to be saddled with the burdens of today – the stress, anxiety, and troubles you’re facing – Jesus wants to carry for you. Give them to Him.
John 4:35 ” Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest?’ I tell you, open your eyes and look up at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”
To proclaim the Good News to those perishing…to witness to the unsaved neighbor down the block…We all think someone else will do it. But the Lord is saying in this scripture – No! Take your eyes off yourself and look around you…there are hundreds, if not thousands that need Jesus in their lives. I want you to reach out to those within the circle of your influence…because only you have this unique group of people to touch with the Gospel Message.
Luke 15:17 ” When he came to his senses…”
The prodigal son had squandered all his wealth and was left destitute. While sitting alone in the middle of a pig pen he realized how stupidly he’d behaved. Those “aha” moments can hit like a lightening bolt of frank truth…piquing our conscience and making us very aware of just how brainless we had acted.
Daniel 5:5-6 ” Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lamp-stand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.”
King Belshazzar gave a huge banquet for a thousand of his closest nobles. And while in a drunken stupor, he ordered the sacred goblets they had captured and taken from the Temple in Jerusalem to be used by this rowdy crowd. It was while they were profaning these holy vessels that God doomed them…and thus that fateful saying was born – the writing on the wall.
Galatians 5:13 ” You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather, serve one another in love.”
Under Christ we are now free…but that doesn’t mean we’re above the law, or have the right to be lawless in our conduct. The Lord wants us to live as free men, but not to use that freedom to cover up evil and corrupt activity.
Psalm 34:18 ” The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
I sit here with one of life’s more uncomfortable tasks to do…write in a sympathy card. Why does it seem so difficult and awkward to choose the right words? I want to be compassionate and caring, but at the same time offer hope and encouragement for the times ahead. I want to share a favorite memory from the past that will hopefully give the recipient a smile and a fond memory of their own. Maybe the difficulty of this task lies in my own mortality, or that of my loved ones…for death visits us all, in some form or fashion. But I guess what is most important is not in the words themselves, but the remembrance of the life that is gone…and in the knowledge that God intervenes on behalf of those who are broken in spirit and grieving.
Safetypinlove 