Shake it off , grab the Joy In His Word
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of
witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us
down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with
endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the
champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him,
he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of
honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful
people; then you won’t become weary and give up. Hebrews 12:1-3
As God’s partners, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it. For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.”
Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of
salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:1-2
We are working together with God to help others to understand
that God’s kindness is a gift that we cannot ignore. It is the gift of
salvation for our souls. We look at Christmas as a gift of Jesus as our Lord,
and then think that it is the end of it, but it is not.
The acceptance that Christ came to save us is only the
beginning of our life with Him. When we read the “unto us a child is born…” we
need to keep reading because that is really the very start of a time with our
Lord that will last for eternity.
We then find the answers to how, why, and often even where? When
we give over our hearts and mind to God.
He gives us Godly wisdom in His Word, that is where we find
the answers.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. How.
Because He loves us He died, rose again to open the gates of
heaven to us. Why.
We hide His Word, we allow Him entrance, and we accept Jesus
in our hearts. Where.
So now what? We begin a life of partnership with Him. We do
His will in our lives, and live so as to please Him. Even when times are hard,
we need to recall the Word and what He has put there to comfort us, encourage
us and pick us back up. Obedience to the Word is easier than it sounds when we
remember that we are not alone in our walk.
We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of
us, and no one will find fault with our ministry. In everything we do, we show that we are true
ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of
every kind. We have been beaten, been
put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless
nights, and gone without food. We prove
ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the
Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love.
We faithfully preach
the truth. God’s power is working in us. We use the weapons of righteousness in
the right hand for attack and the left hand for defense. We serve God whether people honor us or
despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call
us impostors. We are ignored, even
though we are well known. We live close to death, but we are still alive. We
have been beaten, but we have not been killed. Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We
are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others.
We own nothing, and yet we have everything. 2 Corinthians 6:3-10
Even in the most trying moments of life God is with us. He
suffered for us, and He suffers with us. He rejoices when we ‘get it’ and He
celebrates with us when we celebrate Jesus! God is so good that He gave up a
part of Himself to live among us carnal people for so many years and now
because of this we have the closeness, we have the knowing that He has the
knowing of what it feels like to be human. Living among us would teach Him
that, but He went further and died for us. In a really rotten way by the way.
I love this portion of Scriptures because in NLT version
here it is so clearly straight talk and points out the truth in such a clear
way.
The reality of Paul’s life and the ministering people at
that time was harsh, we have it easy most days, though when we loose a loved
one, or someone physically or financially harms us then we can turn to Him for
comfort, direction and hope. He will truly turn our sorrow into joy eventually.
Though it may seem like never, or that He forgot we were hurting so badly we can know that God is already on
the job and we will find that perfect peace when we keep our mind, that means
thoughts and focus, on Him. This is how we learn to trust Him with the hurts.
We donot let the enemy who tried to stomp us down stop us from spreading the
Gospel.
We encourage others to seek God, while we are seeking Him to
get us through our own issues. Life goes on through the world we live in and it
will be worldly as they say, but with God we can do all things.
We will find the joy that comes from nowhere, we will find sorrow, but we can
know Jesus said He overcame it for us so there will be an end to our sorrow.
Where here or there, He will always care.
“God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and
lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my
followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in
heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.
Matthew 5:11-12
Then the Jews stirred
up the influential religious women and the leaders of the city, and they
incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas and ran them out of town. So they shook
the dust from their feet as a sign of rejection and went to the town of Iconium.
And the believers were filled with joy
and with the Holy Spirit. Acts 13:50-52
Shake off the dust from your feet if you need to but look
how they were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit! God will bring in the
joy via the Holy Spirit into our hearts and minds as we make the choice to shake
off the things that are on us and allow Him to fill us up! In Jesus’ name…
In His love,
Teresa Wilson