Do your mind, body and soul need recharging and refreshing? Do you usually feel overburdened by the concerns of this world? Are you now facing major challenges in your family life, relationships, finances or career? Think about this for a moment. What would cause you to relax and rest? If you knew everything was going to work out for your good, you would stop worrying and relax? Would you rest better?
Then go to God, and start relying on His strength. Our Father in heaven wants to strengthen and recharge you. He wants to cause you to rest. He wants to refresh you daily. Even if things don't work out exactly as you planned, or even on your timetable, you can truly trust that God will turn things around on your behalf as His Christian gift, and in your favor.
God created every one of us to be successful through His strength. We just have to learn to turn our lives over to His will, and trust in Him. Before the foundation of the world, He laid out an exact plan for our life. He also gave us free will to choose to ignore Him and live as we want on our own mortal strengths, or come to Him and grow a closer relationship, and be recharged and refreshed. This is God's Christian gift to each of us. All we need to do is open the package.
Matthew 11:28 (AMP) tell us: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your soul."
Once you submit your life to God, by the blood of Jesus, and truly make Him Lord and Ruler of EVERY area of your life, you then will truly find rest for your mind, your body and your soul! When your mind, body and soul are continually at rest, you will start feeling refreshed. You will also discover that your mind is recharged, and you will start experiencing a clearer mental picture. Your physical body is also be recharged, and you will have more energy to do your daily tasks. Your soul will feel refreshed, and life's problems and difficulties will not seem as big, and will roll off your shoulders much more easily.
Start seeking to grow closer in your relationship with God in prayer today, right now, and every day. Tell Him that you know that without His strength you are powerless to handle life's difficulties. Ask Him to favor you as He promised, and relieve you of your burdens, problems and worries.
As you start feeling refreshed and recharged, then thank Him for taking your burdens and giving you peace. Thank Him for His love for you today and giving you new life, hope and strength. Thank Him for His faithfulness, His grace, and His mercy that He bestows upon you daily as His Christian gift.
When you have submitted your life to God, you can go out everyday with an attitude of faith and expectancy because you truly know that God is working behind the scenes on your behalf—and you know that you can come to Him through prayer in the name of Jesus and He will always listen.
By: Steven E Coffman
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Changing Bad Habits to Build Stronger Christian Relationships
Many Christian families today experience their kids, relatives and friends only contacting them on the holidays, or only when they want or need something from them. Some of us tend to have this same type of relationship with Jesus and our Father in heaven.
And some Christian's today may only attend church at Christmas and Easter for the most part, and seldom pray or study the bible. Some Christian’s do go a step further and attend Sunday church services regularly, but seem to somewhat forget that they are also Christians on the other six days of the week, and their prayer habits and bible studies are somewhat confined to Sundays only as well.
These Christians do pray when hard times or drastic life situations arise in their lives. And at this point they sometimes feel helpless, and many times feel that they are being treated unfairly. Then, when they do start praying because of a drastic event occurring in their life, the common question to our Father in heaven in their prayer is; "Why me Lord?" "What did I do that was so displeasing to you that this awful event is happening to me?"
One of the oldest strategies in warfare is to divide and conquer. We consistently need to remember on a 24/7 basis that we are Christians, and also to pray daily to our Father in heaven through Jesus to strengthen us from the 24/7 tugs and pulls of Satan and secular life to counter balance us. Not just an occasional prayer, or to pray only at Christmas and Easter, or on Sundays.
When we fall into these types of relationships with our families, friends and with our Father in heaven, isn’t it a good idea for us to change this habit? Habits are part of the character makeup of each and every person. Habits are the patterns of our actions, and our decisions that we consistently choose or do in a given situation. Some of our habits are truly negatives that hinder or hold us back from growing and maturing in various areas of our life. We not only need to change these bad habits to better ones, but we also need to strengthen our good ones as well, and develop them even stronger than they were before.
We also need to consistently read the bible for our guidelines, and follow the examples in the bible of how to conduct and live as a Christian in our daily life, just as our children look to us as parents for their guidelines and examples.
This is truly the best way to live our lives, because when the hard times and drastic life situations arise, that happens to every one in life, we then have the tools given to us by our Father through Jesus for the extra strength needed to carry us through these events.
In Matthew 22:35-40 (NCV) Jesus was asked by one of the Pharisees that was an expert in the Law of Moses which commandments in the law is the most important. Jesus answered, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and most important command. And the second command is like the first: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' All the law and the writings of the prophets depend on these two commands."
If we stop and think long and hard about what we like about ourselves, and what God likes about us, and what we don't like about ourselves, and what God doesn't like about us. Then we can begin to implement change in our habits. We also need to remember that as Christians we have the power through Jesus and prayer to help strengthen us to change these bad habits, and become the person that we truly want to be, and our Father in heaven wants for us to be as His children. But we have to also make a concerted and consistent effort to do our part in these changes to bring them about.
Some habits can be changed in as little as 21 days, while deep seated habits can take sometimes months or even years to completely change in ourselves. This is truly what our Father in heaven wants each and every one of us to do, and is really no different than what we want and expect from our children to do, being a parent ourselves. This is the way to evolve and grow as children of God, and to mature as a person and a Christian.
Our children love us so much that they truly want to please us in their actions, even if they always won't always admit it! Shouldn't we want to do the same for our Father in heaven?
By: Steven E Coffman
And some Christian's today may only attend church at Christmas and Easter for the most part, and seldom pray or study the bible. Some Christian’s do go a step further and attend Sunday church services regularly, but seem to somewhat forget that they are also Christians on the other six days of the week, and their prayer habits and bible studies are somewhat confined to Sundays only as well.
These Christians do pray when hard times or drastic life situations arise in their lives. And at this point they sometimes feel helpless, and many times feel that they are being treated unfairly. Then, when they do start praying because of a drastic event occurring in their life, the common question to our Father in heaven in their prayer is; "Why me Lord?" "What did I do that was so displeasing to you that this awful event is happening to me?"
One of the oldest strategies in warfare is to divide and conquer. We consistently need to remember on a 24/7 basis that we are Christians, and also to pray daily to our Father in heaven through Jesus to strengthen us from the 24/7 tugs and pulls of Satan and secular life to counter balance us. Not just an occasional prayer, or to pray only at Christmas and Easter, or on Sundays.
When we fall into these types of relationships with our families, friends and with our Father in heaven, isn’t it a good idea for us to change this habit? Habits are part of the character makeup of each and every person. Habits are the patterns of our actions, and our decisions that we consistently choose or do in a given situation. Some of our habits are truly negatives that hinder or hold us back from growing and maturing in various areas of our life. We not only need to change these bad habits to better ones, but we also need to strengthen our good ones as well, and develop them even stronger than they were before.
We also need to consistently read the bible for our guidelines, and follow the examples in the bible of how to conduct and live as a Christian in our daily life, just as our children look to us as parents for their guidelines and examples.
This is truly the best way to live our lives, because when the hard times and drastic life situations arise, that happens to every one in life, we then have the tools given to us by our Father through Jesus for the extra strength needed to carry us through these events.
In Matthew 22:35-40 (NCV) Jesus was asked by one of the Pharisees that was an expert in the Law of Moses which commandments in the law is the most important. Jesus answered, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and most important command. And the second command is like the first: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' All the law and the writings of the prophets depend on these two commands."
If we stop and think long and hard about what we like about ourselves, and what God likes about us, and what we don't like about ourselves, and what God doesn't like about us. Then we can begin to implement change in our habits. We also need to remember that as Christians we have the power through Jesus and prayer to help strengthen us to change these bad habits, and become the person that we truly want to be, and our Father in heaven wants for us to be as His children. But we have to also make a concerted and consistent effort to do our part in these changes to bring them about.
Some habits can be changed in as little as 21 days, while deep seated habits can take sometimes months or even years to completely change in ourselves. This is truly what our Father in heaven wants each and every one of us to do, and is really no different than what we want and expect from our children to do, being a parent ourselves. This is the way to evolve and grow as children of God, and to mature as a person and a Christian.
Our children love us so much that they truly want to please us in their actions, even if they always won't always admit it! Shouldn't we want to do the same for our Father in heaven?
By: Steven E Coffman
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