Category Archives: god is good

Laying Hold of Victory – Living a life of Faith (Prayer 1)

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Victory over Fear, Unbelief, Anxiety, Worry, People Pleasing

(Originally Written October 4, 2023 for WOW — Women on Wednesdays Ministry)

Father,

I come to you as your beloved daughter that you have adopted into Your family knowing that by Your Spirit, I can call out to you as my “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:14-15) I know I can trust You because I know that You love me, and there is nothing that can separate me from that love.  There is no fear of death or fear in life because I know you are always with me.  There is no spiritual power- no angel, or demon that can tear me apart from You and Your love.  Nothing in the present or the future can divide me away from You.  No powers, no height or depth, or anything in all of creation can isolate me away from Your love, God, that is in Jesus Christ my Lord. (Romans 8:37-39) I can rest in this confidence!

I am assured that God is working in all things that I face now or in the future. God is working for my good and His glory because I love Him and am called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

It is Your precious and perfect love for me, Your will to good for me, that casts out all fear that comes against me. (1 John 4:18) I am not subject to anxiety or worry because I know you are my Rock, my Fortress, and My Deliverer! You are the God I take refuge in. (Psalm 18:2)   When the enemy comes in like a flood you raise up a standard against him. (Isaiah 59:19) He will not win!  You are victorious! And You have given me victory over fear, unbelief, anxiety, worry, and people pleasing because I love you and I keep your commands.  I am born of God, and I overcome the world. You have given me faith.  I believe in You, Jesus the Son of God. (1 John 5:3-5)

When fear tries to attack my mind, I call out to you God because you are my Help! (Psalm 18:6) When anxiety and worry try to drown me in their torrent, You reach down from on high and pull me out! (Psalm 18:16) When unbelief speaks lies in my ears, I will praise You alone my God because you establish a stronghold against my enemies and you silence the voice of my foe, the liar, Satan! You alone will I serve and worship with my whole heart and you alone will I long to serve, fear of man, people pleasing, has no hold on me!  (Luke 4:8)

I fix my mind and my eyes on you alone God.  I will not follow any voice of torment because I know Your voice, God, and follow You alone! You are my Good Shepherd.  You take care of me and love me greatly!  I am trusting that though the thief wants to steal, kill, and destroy, You have come to give me abundant and full life! (John 10:4-5, 10) I submit myself to You alone! I depend on You alone! I obey You alone! I am assured that I can rest in Your care and Your love! (Psalm 23)

In the precious name of Jesus, I pray!

Amen

Verse to commit to memory:

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.”

Isaiah 26:3-4 NIV

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The Romans Challenge: Wise About What is Good

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“Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭16‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

To be wise is to be learned, cultivated, and skilled…(Webster’s 1828)

Paul commended the Roman believers for their obedience, or their heartfelt submission to the teachings of Jesus. Obedience is very important to our lives as followers of Jesus. What He says we need to listen to / take to heart, and do. Jesus told us that if we love Him we will obey Him. AND our obedience is always for our own good! Because everything that God commands us to do is good.

This is why it is so important to “be wise about what is good” We need to learn about what is good, cultivate it, and be skilled in it. Everything God says is good! Let’s be students of what He says in His Word!

As we study God’s Word and truly take it to heart, we will come to know God better. We will love Him more. We will act according to His Word. Sin will be defeated in our lives. This is what it means to be “innocent about what is evil.” Or another word for innocent is “blameless.”

God has given us everything we need to live as He wants us to. As we obey Him, study His Word so we can be wise about what is good, and live blamelessly when it comes to evil, we will live lives of freedom. 

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭16‬:‭20‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The Romans Challenge: We Get to Participate!

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“I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.”
Romans‬ ‭15‬:‭18‬-29 NIV‬‬

We live in exciting times! God is working His plan out that He established before the creation of the world.

I know that these statements fly in the face of what the news reports present to us… shootings, turmoil, disunity, disease, wars, etc. It is very dark, but light shines the brightest in the darkness. People are looking for something real. They are spiritually ill, and as believers in Jesus, we have the Truth! We have the cure!

The Apostle Paul lived in a very dark time of history as well. Everywhere he went he shined the light of hope in Jesus Christ. In fact, he made it his “ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known…” (Romans 15:20) God used him in his words and actions to make Jesus known.

This is God’s desire for us today. We were created to know God and make Him known! God wants to use what we say and what we do to reach the broken, hurting, and lost. He wants us to shine His light. He wants to work through us. He will do this, if we will simply yield ourselves to Him, listen to what He says, and obey.

When God works, He works “signs and wonders.” He does things we cannot do on our own. His ways are miraculous. He does what only He can do through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ accomplishes great things through us. We get to participate!

May we live our lives fully surrendered to God. May we totally obey Him. May we depend on Him for everything we do. Living this way will be exciting. Because God will use us when we are entirely, completely, and totally devoted to Him! We will see Him do great things in us and through us as we participate with Him!

The Romans Challenge: Overflow!

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“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭15‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

We were not created to dwell in anxiety, fear, and depression!

Long ago, in the Garden of Eden, mankind was created to dwell connected to God. We were made to be His image bearers, reflecting all that He is to our world. When sin entered, that connection was broken and that image was shattered. However, Jesus came!

Jesus came to set us free from sin and to enable us to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes into our lives the moment we receive the New Life Jesus came to give us! The Holy Spirit empowers us to live according to our original design as “image bearers” of God.

Our God is a God of Peace. Our God is a God of joy. Our God is a God of hope! By the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives within us, we can be filled to overflowing with His peace, joy, and hope! Yet so many of us do not live our lives this way…

I know this from experience. For years, I lived as a Christian full of anxiety, fear, and depression… I tried in my own power, using man’s ways, to fix the way I felt. All of these attempts ended in failure. Until, I determined that I needed to truly surrender EVERY area of my life to God. I decided that I would pursue Him above all things, and live my life focused on Him!

How is this even possible? By the power of the Holy Spirit! By faith in God and His Word, i.e. trusting in Him!

I was living my life focused on me. I was very me-centered! God made us to live our lives focused on Him. Our thoughts are to be focused on Him and His Word. Our speech is to reflect that focus — speaking His truth and His life regarding ourselves, our circumstances, our families, etc. Our actions will fall into line as our focus is laser focused on God and His Word!

Here is the truth of what we all need… We need to live our lives with this motto: Less of me…More of Him! When we overflow with the Holy Spirit in our lives, we will experience what we were created to be all along: People who dwell with hope— a confident expectation of good; People who trust Him — believe that God said it, I believe it, that settles it; People who live with joy, — an emotion that is excited by the expectation of good; People who live with peace — freedom from disturbance or agitation.

Holy Spirit we ask You to fill us up til we overflow with You!

The Romans Challenge: That We Might Have Hope

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“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭15‬:‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God is good! Everything He does is good! Hope is the confident expectation of His goodness towards us. When we have hope we are expecting that God is at work in every situation in our lives to bring about the greatest good in our lives. Hope helps us to trust God, believe God, and look to God for everything we need.

On the other hand, life is hard. We live in a world that is corrupted by sin. Death, darkness, and destruction abound in our world. How do we endure in these circumstances? How do we remain encouraged to keep looking towards our HOPE of the goodness of God? The answer to this is the Scripture. God has given us His Word to teach us about Himself. What He teaches us in His Word teaches us to endure. His Word helps us to remain steadfast. It gives us stability in the storms of life. His Word encourages us. It makes us confident that God is who He says He is, and He will do what He says He will do. This is our Hope!

Do you find yourself living in despair? Are you shaken by the circumstances that surround you? God assures us that He has given us everything we need to live a godly life. His Scripture/ His Word is exactly what we need. A daily practice of engaging with His Word will enable us to live in hope. Reading His Word increases our understanding of just how good He is. The more we study it and read it for ourselves, the more we will experience Him. We can be encouraged and enabled to endure. The key is the Scripture that gives us Hope for our lives.

Father, I ask You to fill us with desire for Your Word so that we may live lives filled with Your Hope. Help us to see You better as we pick up Your Word and engage with it. We know that as we do, we will know You are good. We will have a confident expectation of Your goodness i.e. HOPE! I thank You for Your Word that enables us to live in Hope. In Jesus name I pray.

The Romans Challenge: The Debt to Love

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“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus loves! When I truly get my heart and my mind wrapped around that statement, I am changed. His love reached down into my mess and not only forgave my debt of sins, the areas I have missed the mark, but His love has cleansed me from them and put me in right standing with God. This is not anything I can do on my own. I could never repay Him for what He has done for me. So what is my response? I am indebted to love!

When you and I see how much we are loved by God, our only correct response is to love in return. This is a love for God and those He has placed around us.

When we love, we fulfill the law. Love doesn’t seek its own. Love wants to prosper and benefit others. It isn’t selfish. Love gives itself away for the good of others. “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Loving as God does — completely, deeply, and selflessly — is not something we can do on our own. As believers, the Holy Spirit dwells in us and pours God’s love out into our hearts. “We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 NIV

There are times that I struggled to love as Jesus loves, but I can stand on the promise of God. I can ask Him to fill me with His perfect love so that I am not bound up by the debt of sin once again. 

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love…”

The Romans Challenge: Overcome Evil With Good

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“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Life is not fair…” My mom told me these words when I was a teenager. Things hadn’t gone as she hoped with some family situations. Everything seemed to be so bleak.

When our eyes are on our circumstances, we will not see things clearly. If our eyes are on ourselves, we will want justice our way. We cannot live the life of faith and live a self-focused life at the same time. Living our lives seeking to do what we want, when and how we want to do it, with no consideration of God, will lead to one thing. We will “be overcome by evil…” BUT God has given us His victory. We do not have to live our lives “overcome by evil.” We can “overcome evil with good.”

God is good! All His ways are good! Everything He does is good! He is working all things out for our good! He wants us to experience His goodness!

It is true that we live in a broken world that is marred by sin. There will be situations and circumstances that will try to overwhelm us. Evil wants us to be overcome by them. But when we truly look to God, we will KNOW His goodness! God’s goodness will overcome every evil that tries to overwhelm us. We must look to Him! We must keep our focus on our Good God! We must obey His Good Word! When we do, we will “overcome evil with good.”

The Romans Challenge: Bigger, Bigger, and Bigger God

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“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11‬:‭33‬, ‭36‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Since I am a Missouri Girl, it means one thing with regard to the ocean. I don’t get to see it that much… Every once in a blue moon, my husband and I take a trip to the coast and I find myself standing there staring at the ocean. It is amazing to me how BIG it is. Looking at a globe, seeing pictures, or even seeing it from a distance, cannot compare to standing there with your toes in sand as the waves are crashing on your ankles, gazing straight out to sea.

This is how it is in my relationship with God. When I have only heard about Him, maybe read a few Scriptures or heard a good sermon, He seems somewhat large, BUT when I am experiencing Him by hearing Him speak, seeing His miracles, or watching Him do things I could never do, He becomes bigger and bigger, until His greatness just blows me away!

Have You ever dove into the ocean of God’s great Word and explored knowing Him? Have You ever thought about the depths of His love or the vastness of His goodness? These are “the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”

Years ago, I was reading a Bible story to my kids and I stopped to tell them that God was like the ocean, He wants us to dive in and explore and grow in our knowledge of Him. Then I distinctly heard the Holy Spirit say, “Yes, and you are content to sit on the shore dangling your toes on the edge…”.

We were created for the adventure of KNOWING Him! “For from Him” God made all of creation to show us Himself. “For through Him”… God is the One who sustains us and everything around us. We cannot do anything without Him. “For to Him”… God is to be glorified in our lives. This life is not about you or me. It is all about Him! If we try to make it anything less, we will live outside of His purpose and we will be discontented, discouraged, and eventually destroyed by our pursuit of “self” and selfish ways.

Where are You in relating to God. As you experience Him in a relationship, is He becoming BIGGER and BIGGER and BIGGER in your life. Or is He simply an occasional thought? Are you like I was years ago, “dangling your toes on the edge” of His vastness? You and I are meant for more! Dive in! Let the adventure begin!

The Romans Challenge: The Kindness and Severity of God

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“Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11‬:‭22‬ ‭ESV‬

When we think about God and use the words “Kindness” and “Severity” to describe Him, it seems like we are contradicting ourselves. How can the two exist in a perfect and complete person? The very thought of a severe God or a God of judgement makes many cringe. “God is love.” How can a God who is perfect in love judge and punish?

What we tend to forget is the destructiveness of sin. Sin destroys! It brings nothing but death, darkness, and destruction into our lives. It separates us from God. God knows this. He is perfect, or complete, or Holy. He cannot have imperfection within Himself. He cannot have sin.

God’s deepest desire if for us to experience Him in relationship. He wants for us to be connected to Him and intimate with Him. His desire is for our good. He wants us to be happy in Him. BUT He also knows that sin will keep us from all of this, because sin keeps us from Him.

God’s severity is against sin. He HATES sin! Because He is completely holy (perfect in every way), He must be completely just (upright, honest, true, etc…) The same God who is love and acts only from love also is just and acts only with justice. This justice is exact or “severe.” However, even in judgement God is always working good and He is always judging out of love. His judgements and severity are against the very things that will destroy us. They are against the very things that separate us from Him.

There is a place where God’s kindness and His severity meet — the Cross of Jesus. It was there that Jesus took the punishment we deserve in order for God to be completely just. It was on the Cross that God’s complete kindness towards us was displayed. When Jesus took our punishment, it was so we could experience all of God’s goodness towards us. What is required of us? TO BELIEVE. It is faith in Jesus that gives us the right standing with God.

Jesus we thank You for paying the price for our sin. Thank You for the Cross you bore and the punishment You took for us. Thank You for providing the way for us to receive Your great gift of salvation by faith alone. You did it all! Your kindness and severity have met and we are free when we come to You! We love You! In Jesus Name!

The Romans Challenge: The Remnant

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“So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” Romans 11:5-6 ESV

Have you ever felt alone in your faith? There are times that we all feel that way. Paul writes regarding his people, the Jews of his time, that it may seem that God had rejected them when He called out to the non Jewish — Gentiles — to receive His salvation. But God had not rejected His people at all. He has always had a chosen people, a remnant. This remnant was a small, faithful group, that remained true to God.

Throughout history, God has always preserved His people. There have been very dark hours of persecution of His church and His chosen people Israel. But He has always had someone who was faithful to Him.

In our world today, there are so many things going on. It can be frightening to watch. At times, it seems God’s Church is so small against the onslaught. But we too can take comfort that “there is a remnant…” We have those around us that have responded to God’s grace and received salvation through faith in Jesus. We are able to stand together for our LORD.

I would be negligent to not say that God is also at work in Israel of today. He has a remnant there as well. Though we do not see all the details of what God is working, we can be assured He is not finished yet! He is faithful to us (the non Jewish believers of our time). He is faithful to His chosen people. What He has promised He will fulfill!

For now, we can be assured that there is “a remnant, chosen by grace.” We are not alone. We are a part of God’s family. His church!