HUGGED UP!

Psalm 117:2 NLT For his unfailing love for us is powerful; the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. Praise the Lord.

In a corner of my friend’s lounge she has this chair with a ‘hug’ of bears. Apparently a group of teddy bears is called a ‘Hug’!😊 They just looked so cute and teddy bears always make me think of hugs and cuddles and being loved and comforted.

I wonder if we forget that God loves us with a love that is greater than anything we can imagine, to the point of  suffering and dying for us so we can be with Him and be part of His family. His word tells us He really cares about us and that He’s holding us up through all the trials of life. He is so intimately aware of us that He knows when we get up and sit down.

He says He is actually holding our hand leading and guiding us through the maze of life and as long as we keep trusting Him He will bring to pass all of His wonderful plans He has to bless us. 

Jesus told us it won’t always be rosey, that we would have difficulties but He then added “Cheer up. I’ve overcome the world for you.” In other words, I’ve already gone ahead to work things out in your favour if you’ll keep close to Me.

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of how deeply God loves each one of us, how important we are to Him, and how He longs to draw us close to Himself for fellowship if we’ll only allow Him to, instead of pushing Him away when things go pear shaped or we make a mistake.

Will you let Him give you, not a bear hug today, but a God hug which is infinitely better and more comforting? 😊

I pray your weekend will be blessed and ‘hugged up’ by your heavenly Father. In Jesus name. Amen.💕

SO GRATEFUL

Psalm 31:19 How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you. You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world.

We’ve been away for a few days in South Devon where we lived for many years, catching up with old friends and family and making some new friends too, which was a lovely bonus.😊 

We even had a day at the seaside in the sunshine with an outdoor picnic watching the sea and the scenery. What a joy that was as we are a long way from the sea where we live now, right in the middle of England.

How lovely it is though, to come back home and walk through our own front door and sleep in our own familiar bed! It’s so easy to take things for granted with the day to day routines but it’s good to look around and just be so grateful for everything we have in our lives that God is blessing us with every day.

It came home to me when I was chatting with a homeless man sitting outside Tesco the other day and when you have a conversation like that it makes you realise how thankful we should be for what we have, how much God has blessed us in our lives, and ask the Lord to forgive us for our moans and complaints.

So just in case you’ve been feeling a bit down or hard done by, my encouragement to us today is to stop and look around where we live, and be so grateful if we have any work, grateful for our homes and families, grateful we don’t have to live in a tent which that man was doing, and give our God all the praise for His great goodness to us every single day.

And if things are tough at the minute, grab hold of the promise in our verse that God has great goodness stored up for you still to come, and thank Him it’s on it’s way, because it surely is.😊 Amen.

HAPPINESS IS….?

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NLT Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

Handmade Happiness! We were at a Motorway Services this week and I read that phrase on the side of a van selling cakes, chocolate brownies and cheesecakes! As far as that company was concerned they were hand making a bit of happiness for their customers to enjoy everyday.😊

Now happiness for you might be to read a good book, or to go shopping, or to visit friends, and God says He gave us all things to enjoy. But we know happiness is elusive and one minute we can be up in the clouds, singing a jolly song and the next minute down in the dumps feeling as though the bottom dropped out!

So what do we do at those times? How do we learn to live life on an even keel instead of these highs or lows? Well in Philippians 4:11-13 the Apostle Paul talks about being content with whatever he had, because he learned he could do everything through Christ, knowing God was in the situations of life with him to strengthen and help him to rise above them with a grateful, thankful attitude.

Paul learned happiness isn’t hand made, it’s God made, as we tune in to His Holy Spirit.

Paul tells us to always be joyful, but because we are so involved with our emotions we think we can’t do it. The only way to rise above our emotions is to take our eyes off the difficulty that’s staring us in the face and remember that God is still on the throne, He loves us deeply and He has a turn around coming. It helps to speak faith building positive words, and words of victory, not defeat!

So we don’t have to look to ‘things’ to bring us happiness but to the Lord Jesus Himself to bring us His joy, His peace, His victory and His intimate companionship to see us through with a thankful heart as we keep praying in faith and trusting our good God. Amen.😊

Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash

GOD IS NOT LIMITED

Matthew 17:27 However, we don’t want to offend them, so go down to the lake and throw in a line. Open the mouth of the first fish you catch, and you will find a large silver coin. Take it and pay the tax for both of us.

Peter and Jesus had a tax bill to pay and as Peter obviously didn’t have the money to pay it, Jesus told him to go fishing and the first fish he came across would have a coin in it’s mouth which would pay both their bills. Now at that point Peter could believe Jesus or he could have cynically said “Yeah, right! You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Jesus says things to us all the time in scripture and we have the same choice to make. Are we going to believe what God’s word says or cynically reject it as too good to be true, or not applying to us? You see we’re only hindered by what we believe or rather what we don’t believe!😊

Mark 5:36 NKJV …Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid, only believe.” When we believe all things are possible with God we open up a door into the supernatural ability of God and it will help us overcome our fear. Jesus fully expected Peter to believe he could have what Jesus said he could have. 

Isaiah 40:12-13 talks about the God who held the oceans in His hand, and who measured off the heavens with his fingers. He asks who else knows the weight of the earth or who has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale, only our God. He’s expanding our minds to realise how powerful and big our God really is, so that the door to the unbelievable will be thrown wide open.

The Holy Spirit really wants us to get outside of our own limited understanding and let Him take us where His word draws a picture of what impossible looks like. When we believe our God is unlimited and more powerful than anything, then we’ll be able to be like Peter and just do whatever He tells us to do and we’ll have what He says we can have.😊Amen.

DRINK LIVING WATER

John 4:14 NKJV but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

We’re always being encouraged to drink more water every day to stay healthy and nobody else can drink it for us, so we have to do it ourselves. In the same way we need to drink of the water of the word of God everyday to stay healthy spiritually.😊 

We may think we can go without it but we won’t be fresh and revived and full of the living water God wants us to enjoy. We don’t want stale water or water from yesterday or last year, we want fresh water every day.

Reading and listening to the word is part of our worship because when Mary and Martha had invited Jesus to their house for the day it says Jesus was pleased with Mary who sat and listened to Him. She drank in every word He said and gave Him her time. Martha was so busy she didn’t think she could spare the time so she became stressed out and cross with Mary and Jesus as well ‘for not doing something about it!’ But it was her choice, her priorities were different with different results.

Have we ever felt like that? Too much to do, nobody taking responsibility and helping us? Maybe if we sit with the Lord for a little while He’ll give us the wisdom to know what to do about it, but if we don’t listen we won’t find out.😊

Can I encourage us all to just take five minutes at intervals throughout our day and shut your eyes, in the rest room if need be at work, or at home, and allow the Lord’s peace to flood our souls, let His presence flow into us and see if He is trying to get a word in edge ways. It could change the course of our day as we stop and drink of Him and let Him refresh us. In Jesus name. Amen.😊

Photo by Janosch Lino on Unsplash