YOU ARE BEING HELD TOGETHER!

 Acts 17:28 For in Him we live and move and have our being (we exist).

Have you seen that invisible thread some manufacturers use for certain clothing? When the cloth is pulled in any direction you can just about see the thread holding it together. It's incredibly strong because it's made of nylon instead of polyester or cotton which break more easily.

In the same way the Holy Spirit is the 'invisible' thread which holds us together as we live in God.  We live our lives, we move around and have our very existence in God through the amazing Person of the Holy Spirit. I've heard Him referred to as the Muscle of God.  

The reason we don't break is because Jesus was broken for us. His shed blood paid the price to redeem us from the curse. He took all the pressure of Hell itself, all the destruction, all the disease, all the sorrow and griefs which want to rend us apart through our lives but when we're in Him bound by that invisible thread of the Holy Spirit we are held strong and steady. 

So when we feel like we're being pulled in every direction, when the enemy puts strains and stresses and pressures of any kind on us to try to break us, we can know we will overcome because Jesus has already taken all the pressure, every terrible thing in His own body on the tree and defeated it so we can be delivered from all the work of the enemy.

When our eyes are focused on Jesus and His finished work we can enter that 'rest', in Him, and know the Holy Spirit is holding us together with great strength, with His supreme power that raised Jesus from the dead. What an awesome God we serve. 

So don't ever say I'm falling apart at the seams. No, be encouraged today, you are being held together by the Holy Spirit of God Himself because you belong to Him, you live and move and have your very being in Him. When your eyes are on Jesus you already are an overcomer.  Hallelujah. 

LIFE HAPPENS STORY!

Nehemiah 8:10 Do not sorrow for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Life happens!  I'd just made our coffees and absentmindedly added milk to Chris's cup which I never do as he likes to add his own. That was my first mistake.  He then carried it into the lounge and spilt some of it on the floor as I'd filled it too high! I ran to fetch a kitchen towel to absorb the coffee out of the carpet  and in my rush, accidentally bumped my jigsaw board on which I'd put my cup of coffee which made it spill all over the jigsaw. I now had coffee on the floor and poured all over the jigsaw! Get the picture?  But wait it goes on.  The corner section pieces are now soaked and swelling up and the paper picture on each piece is now peeling and floating off the pieces!  By the way, this jigsaw is not mine. I borrowed it!

As I say life happens and although all of that is totally of no importance in the big scheme of things it reflects how easy it is for things to upset us and we get the domino effect. One absentminded decision leads to a whole course of events. All I did was put milk in his coffee!!

I can laugh about it now but at the time it was very disgruntling.  Little things can upset us and they try to steal our joy. Someone cuts us up in traffic, the last toilet roll has just been taken, someone is rude or just plain thoughtless, whatever it is that bugs you it seems to happen, and we're faced with the choice. Do I let this steal my joy or shall I take the high road? and say 'I'm not going to give away my joy because of this, I'm just going to let it go.'

The temptation is to moan and groan and mutter but we do have a choice. We don't have to give our joy away.  We have to remember the joy of the Lord is our strength and when we let our joy go we'll lose some of our strength and none of us can afford to do that. Well I can't anyway!

So if life 'happens' to you today, just take a moment, call on the Holy Spirit's help, and say 'It's ok, this is just not worth giving my joy away over, I'm going to let it go. I'm going to keep my joy.'

Have a joy filled day.😊