God Watches Over You

1. Do you know that God is watching over you?

2. Are you prayers full of thanks for His presence with you?

3. Is God in control?

4. Are only the people of faith aware of his presence?

5. Will we enjoy God in Heaven personally one day?



5 The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.  psalm 121: 5-6

From Fear to Faith

From: Get More Strength.org

Feb

05

2016

“The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD is on his heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men; his eyes examine them. Psalm 11:4

I have a friend who says, “Through the years I have seen a lot of things change, and I have been against them all!” Change can be very unsettling. It interrupts the predictability and comfort of having things just the way we like them. But even for the most “I like it the way it has always been, thank you!” kind of people, we have to admit that there are some advantages to change. I can remember when you had to crank a handle to roll up a car window. Now you just push a button. Rather than waiting in line for a mumps immunization given by a stern-faced school nurse with what seemed like a foot-long needle, now all kids have to do is swallow something that tastes like bubble gum.

But as welcome as some changes may be, change can sometimes create serious problems. When our lives are impacted by sudden change that turns life upside down, it can be spiritually dangerous. Ending up in the ditch can easily make us feel a little shaky about our faith in God. That’s the kind of change the psalmist wrote about in Psalm 11:1-7—the kind of change that threatened everything he believed. How do we respond when the foundation of our faith begins to wobble, when our troubling circumstances make us question God?

The psalmist says that radical change can either foster debilitating fear or confident faith. Fear haunts our hearts when all we can ask is “What am I to do?” Faith cuts to the exclamation point:The Lord is in control! In the first half of Psalm 11:1-7, David wrings his hands as he describes the fear of losing everything—his kingdom, his reputation, his faith because of circumstances out of his control. You may be buckling under the weight of fear because your world is falling apart. But like David, you can turn your heart to the Lord and declare, “The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord is on His heavenly throne” (Psalm 11:4). His throne is the symbol of His sovereign oversight and authority over all things. David moved from fear to faith by focusing on the exclamation point of God’s rule in his life and not on the question marks of the devastating changes in his life.

Old silent movies often included a scene where the villain tied a beautiful heroine to the train tracks. In great fear, she kicks and screams as the chugging locomotive heads straight toward her sweet little body. But we know she won’t die there. Just in the nick of time, the hero will emerge from the forest and cut the ropes delivering her to safety as he carries her away into the sunset. You can count on it: God will be there for you, even if it’s just in the nick of time!

Psalm 42:5 declares, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.” That must be why the psalmist said, “There they were, overwhelmed with dread, where there was nothing to dread” (Psalm 53:5).

In the midst of the changing circumstances of life, we have a choice. We can live in fear of all the uncertainties, or we can cling to the reality of God’s sustaining and intervening presence in our lives. When we find our strength in the fact that our Almighty God is on the throne and has everything under control, the defeating question marks are replaced with the confidence of His exclamation points, and that’s a welcome change!

God Helps With Loneliness

Thank you for commenting below:  Let us know what you think?

1. Is loneliness a bad thing?
2. When God is with you does it help loneliness?
3. What should people do to combat loneliness?

4. What is your message to lonely people?

“The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone’ ” Genesis 2:18

It’s Not Good to Be Alone

From: Get More Strength.org

Jan

29

2016

“The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone’ ” Genesis 2:18

While reading through the creation narratives in Genesis for the umpteenth time, I was struck by God’s commentary on Adam being alone in the garden. What caught my attention was the observation God made after each stroke of his creative power: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Until, that is, He made Adam. At that point, something was not good: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). So He fixed it and did something really good—He made Eve!

A couple of thoughts race through my brain at this point. I couldn’t agree more with God’s assessment—man needs woman! Left to ourselves we would be more like untamed savages than decent, sensitive specimens of humanity. I have no idea how off track my life might be if my wife Martie had not come along. She is a consistent check to my social insensitivities, to my self-serving male perspectives on life, to what color combinations work and which ones don’t, and to making life better for our kids and grandkids. To say nothing of her sensitive heart toward God that stimulates me to want to serve and follow Him with greater enthusiasm. Thankfully, for all of us guys, God didn’t get carried away with how good it all was but saw the single flaw and did something to save the world from men left to themselves! Bravo for that stroke of creative genius. As the French say, Vive la difference!

The other thought that caused me to stop reading long enough to let it sink in, is that being alone is not a good thing for anyone. God made us in His image—which means that we, like Him, are relational beings. In the beginning, it was a literal paradise of fulfilling relationships as God in an unhindered way walked with Adam and Eve in the garden and they enjoyed the fullest experience of intimacy with each other. So, where did loneliness come from? How did the demon of loneliness that haunts many of our hearts today alienate us from the others that we so desperately need?

I want to be clear here and admit that loneliness isn’t always brought on by us or our choices. So this is not a guilt trip. But as the story unfolds, we see the damage of alienation haunting the landscape of life. Adam and Eve hide from God out of fear of getting caught, and Adam blames Eve for his disobedience, which clearly drives a wedge into their flawless intimacy. And the deep fellowship on every satisfying level is now replaced by alienation, blame, distrust, and shame.

Which leaves me wondering, how could people who had it so good end up with everything so out of sync? It all started going south when Eve believed that to live for herself and her own gain was more important than living to love God and Adam. And to make matters worse, Adam followed suit.

The lesson here is huge. Living for what’s “best for me,” while ignoring the needs, wishes, and interests of others always brings alienation and aloneness.

Thank God that He has made a way for us to restore relationships and to recapture a portion of the intimacy of Eden. When we follow the way of Jesus and live to love and serve others, aloneness gives way to intimacy and our self-serving acts of alienation dissolve into a bonding that gets us wonderfully stuck on each other again.

And guys, that should probably start with us since it’s not a good thing for us to be alone!               Written by: Joe Stowell