Letters From God- His Love

Day 5

Bible Verses
Isiah 41:10
Romans 5:8
John 3:16
1 John 4:16
Psalms 188:6

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for your unfailing love. No matter what I am going through in life, you still love me. Thank you for loving me for me, and that I don't need to change to receive your love. Thank you for loving me even when I can't Amen.

Letters From God - Self Worth

Day 4

Bible Verses
Psalms 139:13-16
Ephesians 2:4-9

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for making me to be so wonderful. Thank you for see me for who you made me to be, even when I don't believe it. Help me to see myself like you see me when I am down on myself, or when this world tells me otherwise. Amen

Letters From God - Control

Day 3

Bible Verses
Romans 8:28
Jeremiah 29:11
Proverbs 19:21

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for being in control of my life, because I know that you can do more with it than I can. I know that I often fight for control, but I am surrendering now. Please place your will on my life, and help me to trust you and follow what you have planned for me. Amen.

Letters From God - Forgiveness

Day 2

Bible Verses
1 John 1:9
James 5:16
1 Corinthians 10:13

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for you forgiveness for all of our sins. Help us to believe that were are not far from forgiveness no matter how much we sin. Thank you for allowing us to come back after we have fallen away, and thanks for your help out of temptation.

Letters From God - Intro

So I am starting a new series called "Letters From God." I got this idea from a sermon that my church did, where there was no pastor talking to us, but we had to read the screens and the words were written as if God was speaking to us. So for the next two weeks, my posts will be formatted as letters from God. I pray that this has an impact on your life, as you read these letters. The first letter is below.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for your love, and I pray that as we start off into this new series that you will show us how you look at us, because it is totally different from what the world sees. Amen.

Words of Encouragement

I know that I have talked on this topic before, and I know that most of us have heard this many times in our lives: the words we say are important. Just recently my church was talking on this topic, and it wasn't just for the high school students, but the whole church talked about this on the same day, showing us just how important this really is. Our words really do matter. Ephesians 4:29 says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." This verse talks directly about watching everything that we say and making sure that what say is building someone up, and not tearing them down. My pastor said something amazing when it comes to this. She said, "it takes the same amount of breath to build someone up, as it takes to tear someone down." That is so true. If you were to say "I hate you." it would take the same amount of breath to say "I love you." There are three words, and two words are same. All you do is change one word, and it can either build someone up or tear someone down.

Now my church laid out three questions that we should ask ourselves before we speak that come from this verse.
Question 1-Do the words I say build someone up? If your words are not going to encourage someone with your words based of their needs at that time.

Question 2-The right thing said at the wrong time is that wrong thing. Is what I'm saying right for the occasion? This one I struggle with the most. So often we think of something, or we feel a certain way and we want everyone to immediately know about it. But if we wait for the right time to say it, then you could be say the right thing.

Question 3-Does it give grace to benefit the listener? So we are focusing and giving grace to the listener through our words whether they are a believer or not.

We won't automatically change our behaviour overnight. I5t will take time to change our habits, but we should work on this for God's glory.

Dear Heavenly Father
Thank you for giving us the ability to speak and communicate. I pray that you guide our words when we speak so that we may build each other up. Amen.

New Blog!

I wanted to let my readers know that I have a new blog, and it is all dedicated to song break downs. I will be posting once a week on Sunday nights, and tonight is the first night. If you have time, I encourage you to go over and check it out. Thanks.

Song's For God's Glory
songsforgodsglory.blogspot.com

Accepting the Brokenness

I want to start off today’s post with a simple question. How many of you have broken a bone? I personally have not, but I have a friend who has broken multiple bones in her body, and some part of her body is usually in a cast. When you break a bone, don’t you go to the doctor to have them work on healing it so that you won’t have a broken bone? Having a broken bone is painful, and you want it to be fixed rather fast to get rid of the pain, so you head to the doctor immediately. Now I have a different question. How many of you have had a broken spirit? All of us at some point in our lives have had a broken or crushed spirit. So the question is how do you heal a broken spirit. You can’t drive to your local doctor’s office and ask for them to put your spirit in a cast. So how do we heal a broken spirit?

Well I have good news. There is someone out there who can heal your spirit, and all your brokenness. His name is Jesus, and he came down to Earth to die for our sins, but also to be a doctor for the broken. There are a couple verses where it talks about Jesus being our doctor.

Mark 2:17 says, “On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners.’”

Matthew 9:12 says, “On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’”

These two verses talk about how Jesus came for the broken and the sick not for the righteous. But there is another part to this. While Jesus is our doctor, you need to accept the fact that you are broken and that you need him. I feel that as a society, we hide our brokenness and imperfections from everyone even God. We walk around acting like we aren’t broken, but when we do that, we carry the pain that comes with the brokenness. If you had a broken leg, it would be extremely painful to walk on it, and that pain is something that we are trying to hide. But know that it is okay to be broken, to admit that you can’t do this on your own. Jesus said that he is here to be our doctor, but we first have to go and visit him for him to start healing us. Being broken is a good thing, for you are saying that you can’t do this on your own and that you need Jesus, the doctor, and when you lay your brokenness out, he can start fixing you, and do his works with in you.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for being our doctor. I pray that I will come to you every time that I am broken, so that you may start to heal me. I am sick, and I need you to be my doctor. You have the ability to help me through any situation, any storm, any trial. Thank you for always being ready to help me. Amen.

Unanswered Prayers

All of us at some point in our lives have asked God for something, whether it is for good grades on a test, or for a sick friend or family member to heal. Sometimes God answers our prayers, but sometimes it feels like he doesn't answer our prayers. Matthew 7:7-8 says, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Now the first part of this verse talks about asking and receiving an answer. Now there are three ways to answer a question, yes, no, and wait. Now how many of us love to receive the "yes" answer, and we don't like to receive the "no" or "wait" answer. The thing is that when we receive an answer that we don't like we often overlook the answer we have been given, in hope for a better answer, leaving us with a feeling that God doesn't answer our prayers. But God answers all of our prayers, just not always with the answer that we want, at the time that we want. In the Bible study that I go to at my school, we were talking about this and one of the guys, Corwin, said, "We need to look for the reason, and not for the yes." When all we search for the yes, we miss the answer that God gave us. We should instead be looking for the reason why God gave the answer that he did, and you will find it as it says in Matthew 7:7. It isn't easy to find and we may not always understand it at first, but God has a legit reason why he gave his answer. God knows your past, he sees what is going on in the present, and he knows what will happen in the future. God knows intimately more about a situation then we, and even if it seems good for us, God knows what is best for us. We need to believe that his plan for us, and he has a good reason for giving us the answer that he did.

Now a common way that this can apply to our lives, is through our grades. We have all had a point in our lives where we wanted to get a good grade on a test, or get the extra credit to raise our overall grade. Trust I have done it too, and when I don't get the grade that I want, or the grade that I think I deserve, it is infuriating. The thing is that God has showed me some amazing lessons through him not saying yes to all my pleas for good grades. Over the past couple of years I have learned perseverance, and patience. I have learned to stand up for myself, and the ability to present my side of the argument. God used my grades to show me that I am so much more than a number that they put on a piece of paper. If God would have said "yes" every time I asked for a good grade, then I would end up finding my identity in my schooling, and not in God. Take this example, and be encourage to search for the reason behind God's answers and not for the "yes," because the reasons are better, and they are there for our best interest.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for knowing my heart, and what is best for me. When I pray and I present my request to you, help me to not just wait for the "yes," but to seek the reason behind your answer. I know that you are on our side, and that you wouldn't do anything to hurt us, and thank you so much for that. Amen.