Verse 14 And we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men.
Verse 15 See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men.
Verse 16 Rejoice always.
Verse 17 pray without ceasing;
Verse 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Verse 19 Do not quench the Spirit.
Verse 20 do not despise prophetic utterances.
Verse 21 But examine everything carefully; Hold fast to that which is good;
Verse 22 abstain from every form of evil;
Verse 23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. NAS
I John 4:18-20 Verse 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear drives out punishment. (So the one who fears is not complete in love.) Verse 19 We love because He first loved us. Verse 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. The person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
This can be a scary verse. Now, sometimes we hate what our brothers and sisters do, but not them. With our Christian brothers and sisters, it is sometimes hard to tell what we hate. Mostly, if the hurt goes deep into the soul. I believe the soul carries your emotions. I’ve not read that anywhere, so I could be wrong.
I believe the fear comes into play because they are afraid to meet the Lord with this guilt of not being able to forgive or love a brother. This in itself is punishment. This can keep you from moving forward. The only way to move forward is to ask Jesus, through the Holy Spirit to help you. It will not happen overnight. If this person keeps adding hurt to your plate, it will take longer. Keep trying. It will be on them and not you.
In your prayers, always ask God to put more love in your heart for Him. The more you love Him, the easier it is to love other people.
We love because He first loved us. Someday we will face the One we love and the One who loves us. Our love for an unseen God is expressed in our love for God’s children….our brothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t love them because there is something about their personality we like and so forth. But because they are a child of God. With the completeness of love, we must be willing to sacrifice for them. Then truly, love is completed.
I have begun my Bible Study Fellowship study for this year and we are studying the “Kingdom Divided”. Although I have studied this part of the Bible in-depth before a number of times, I always come away with amazing new knowledge. I love the Old Testament because I learn so much about the character of God. Well, a few things each time. We can always depend upon Him but how He reacts or answer prayers is always unpredictable. We can have faith in His character, but His ways are complex and hard to understand.
Isaiah 55:8-9
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My way’s higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Remember that God thinks and moves for the long term and His wisdom is eternal.
Beloved, please be in prayer. Be in a state where you trust God and can hear the Holy Spirit’s leading. He will give you peace in a troubled world, but you must have a relationship with Him so you will know when to turn right or left. If fleeing from bad weather or something else, you need to know which way to go. God can lead you to safety.
Many years ago, God asked me to give his word to a person I met in another city in our state. He was from California. I knew that this person would be in our city, but I did not know where this person would be. God told me when to turn left and right. I went to exactly where this person was at that moment. He will do this for you, my friend. But being in prayer and walking with Him before you need Him in this type of situation, is essential. Don’t chance on waiting until the last minute.
May these verses help you in your faith.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
therefore we will not fear, though the earth change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;
The Lord of Hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46:1-3, 7, 10 NAS
Psalm 34:4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears.
Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals the secret counsel to His servants the prophets. Amos 3:7
Some Saints today are afraid of our tomorrows. Beloved, the more we pray, the more our fears dissolve. I have written about entering the throne room of God, so I will not write about that at this time. I hope to give you some hope.
Hope is fragile. It must be nutured by prayer. God wants you to sit with Him. He wants you to voice your concerns and then sit quietly and long for His presences with you. By praying about your concerns and protection, He will set in motion the leading of you to places of protection. Also, He sets His timing in place. Have you ever came upon an accident and thought, if you had been 10 seconds further down the road that you would have been in that accident, That has happened to me. I thanked God immediately.
Amos 3:7 says, “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals the secret counsel to His servants the prophets.”
Genesis 18 tells of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Jeremiah 23:22-23, God says, “But if they had stood in My council, then they would have announcved My words to My people (your family)…Am I a God who is near,” declares the Lord, “and not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places, so I do not see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth.” declares the Lord.
Men of God, you are the head of the family and your main focus is praying, worshipping God, listening to God, and leading your family. Serve God and others with love. Ask God to put more love in your heart for Him. Then that love will spill over to your family and others. That love will be the perfume poured over Jesus feet that will be a frangrance in the Throne Room of God.
In this unique time of this generation, we need to go forth to bring the weary and lost to the fold of peace and hope. Prayer is necessary for the Holy Spirit to go before us. I believe God has prepared circumstances to prepare people to accept and love Him. But, His voice for this generation is you. Will you accept Jesus’s commission?
We are called to holiness. We are called to speak Truth. Rejoice for God is preparing the hearts of many during this time. Be counted worthy to be His Voice. Take His divine assignment.
I believe , what we are experiencing now, is not the pains in the tribulation, but the pains that could launch us into the pains of the tribulation. We are in the period that is mentioned in Matthew 24:14, in that the gospel is preached in the whole world. When you take the word of mouth, television, and computers, I think it has been preached throughout the world. But there are more to rescue.
This is a fierce spiritual battle, which bleeds into the physical. I have never seen so many physical battles in just one year. Think about how many things are happening all at once. We have the pandemic which hurt many families. We have economic problems stemming from the pandemic. We can add fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and the list goes on.
Cancer seems to invade so many families. My family before me did not experience cancer. My daughter died at the age of 14 from cancer. My husband survived. I have cancer in the lungs and now maybe cancer elsewhere. Cancer centers are crowded with people of all ages.
Through all though, you can make spiritual deposits by teaching others about Jesus and give them love with joy. Ask God to put love in your heart for Him and others. From that comes joy and peace.
Your grandmother’s prayers are still protecting you.
Here are some things that I regret not doing at a younger age and continued with it for a lifetime.
You need to keep a list of other people’s concerns. In the past I would pray for others and it would take almost an hour just to pray from my prayer list. At one point, I believed a lie, that if the Holy Spirit wanted me to pray for someone, He would bring that request to my memory and then I would pray for them. These precious people entrusted me to pray about their concerns. I had failed them and God.
Another thing I did and really regreted, keeping my prayer journals. I had so many of them. One day in a weak moment while cleaning, I threw them away. Later, I questioned myself. How could I throw them away? They were a part of my legacy. They would have been wonderful to leave these to my children. When I leave this earthly home and go to my heavenly home, it would have been something they would have treasured.
A Prayer Journal,helps you to focus on what God wants you to do or what was impressed on you. You have to be careful here and make sure you are listening to God.
Another thing I wished I had done was to keep a prayer journal for each of my children. This would have been a record of God intervening in their life at a young age or even as a baby or prayers offered up for an unborn child.
One thing I remember was a night that I asked God for a special blessing for each child. I am sure this was God putting that prayer in my heart. My youngest child was only about six months old. I had more or less forgot that prayer until God reminded me a few years later. I really enjoyed watching God move in their lives to bring about these blessings. That prayer that night formed their lives as adults. The Holy Spirit had put that prayer into my heart.
Also I wished I had done better at the dinner table. Sometimes we talked about business. I wanted my children to learn about business. A wonderful thing to discuss at the dinner table is “how did you see God move that day.”
I wished I had taught them More about prayer. I did take them through a course called, “Prayer Life” by Hunt. You can find that study at Lifeway. Also instruct them about Prayer Journals and help them get started.
Also I wished I had involved them in some of my concerns. Not all of them. Just a few. The Bible says to come to Him as little children. Yes, I would have wanted prayers taken to Him by innocent children. Can you imagine a prayer time with your child, kneeling in the presences of God.
When you are doing your Bible Study, sometimes a name is layed in your spirit. Now it may be layed on your spirit from a prayer request. But if it is one of your children, I pray it is in your spirit. If it is in your spirit, you are connecting that child spiritually. If you are keeping a journal for each child, that is something you need to add to their prayer journal. I have prayed many times for my children, Isaiah 59: 21 and Deuteronomy 6, for me and my children. Pray about the commands of God and His promises. Beloved,l put these things in your heart. Things that you pray now could envelope the following generations.
The world is filled with stories of change. This year many people have seen changes due to this pandemic. Beloved, I hope each of your journeys has deepened your relationships with one another. I pray that you have allowed God to divinely influence your heart within your family. Each person is treasured by God. This is a time for us to find the treasure in each of our loved ones.
Many have had these treasured loved ones leave this world to their next world.
We were concerned about my 12 year old grandson and my daughter and son-in-law took him to the Children’s Hospital. Finally they found the cause of his severe pain. His appendix had ruptured. The hospital did allow my daughter and nursing baby to stay with him. They were not allowed to leave and return, so they stayed in the hospital room that was assigned to my grandson.
During this time, my son-in-law’s father was admitted to the hospital. They found he had stage 4 cancer. He died a few days later. His heart stopped on his birthday. They did revive him. The next day, his heart stopped again. He did not survive.
The Children’s hospital allowed my grandson to go home to say good-bye. All knew him as a loving and caring person who loved Christ. He thought of others before himself. His love, as all of us, should become legendary.
God used His children to bring comfort to the family. I remember a quote by Mike Emlet, “Offering comfort begins with your presence because your presence with a person actually incarnates the comfort of God to those experiencing suffering.
Two nights ago the Holy Spirit burdened my heart for my youngest daughter and her family. They went to another state to move my oldest granddaughter’s things from her college dorm. This “shelter in place” happened while she was home for spring break.
The Holy Spirit that lives within me, burdened my heart for my youngest daughter and family. I did begin praying that evening and continued to pray when I woke from sleeping in the early morning. Then I prayed a couple of times during the day.
In the afternoon I prayed a couple of times before receiving a text from my daughter. She said they were driving in heavy rain and a semi-truck hit a pothole and the semi jumped into their lane. They were beside the truck when it jumped into their lane. They were fine and the truck briefly kissed their car and trailer. The truck took off their mirror and dented the trailer they were pulling. The semi did not realize that anything happened. Because of the weather they could not stop on the road since visibility was so low.
My question is, “What would have happened if I had not prayed.” I do not understand the workings of this kind of prayer. I do know, that when the Holy Spirit says you need to pray…..you need to pray
If a burden is placed in your heart by the Holy Spirit, please pray. Pray as if their life depends on your prayer.
