I will share about Christian books I have read or listened to.
I will be sharing about my life before and after Christ. I will include stories about my pet and other pets I have encountered.
Closer Than You Think
When something terrible happens and the world makes zero sense…
The Lord is still close.
Throughout Scripture, we see examples of this: God fights for the Israelites and rescues them from the Egyptians (Exodus 14:13-14). Joshua defeats powerful nations because God fights for him (Joshua 23:10). The Israelites are protected by God as they rebuild Jerusalem’s walls (Nehemiah 4:20).
In Isaiah 54, God reminds the Israelites that He sees their pain, and He has compassion on their circumstances. At the time, the Israelites were in exile. But God promises that their suffering won’t last forever.
God does not abandon His people. Even when they endure intense hardship, God still ultimately shows up, and when they cry out to Him, He fights for them.
And the same God who fought for Israel fights for each of us. This doesn’t mean you won’t face hard things. But even when your mind races and your heart doubts, God is near. He offers you a peace that cannot fully be explained.
Right now, take a few moments to name anything that is crushing your spirit. Then, give yourself permission to sit in God’s presence for a few moments. Give Him all your concerns, and ask Him to show you how He has protected and provided for you.
Power, Love, and Discipline
One of the miracles of salvation is that when we have faith in Christ, God not only saves us—He also gives us the power to live according to His will. Your life in Christ is one that is empowered by the Holy Spirit living within you.
This is a great gift, but a big shift. It often takes time to change how we think and act. We may have bad habits that take hard work to correct, or patterns of thought that are challenging to break.
Thankfully, God promises to be with us and to empower us to make these changes in our life. When Paul is writing to his mentee Timothy, he encourages him to continue to develop the gift that God has given to him. While we are saved in an instant, it takes a lifetime to develop and work out what God is doing inside of us.
Paul reminds Timothy that God’s Spirit does not give us fear or cowardice. Those things are tools of the devil who is trying to keep us from God. But the Spirit of God empowers us with confidence in Him. He gives us the ...
