God's Faithfulness and Love Are Enduring

 

Psalm 36:5 

"Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies."

Psalm 57:10
"For Your loving devotion reaches to the heavens, and Your faithfulness to the clouds."
Psalm 103:11
"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him."
Jeremiah 9:24
"But let him who boasts, boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am The LORD, Who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth--for I delight in these things," declares The LORD."

 

I LIFT MY EYES - Kristyn Getty/Jordan Kauflin/Matt Merkel

Psalm 121:1
"I lift up my eyes unto the hills, where my Help comes from."
Hebrews 13:5-6
"Let your conversation (character and lifestyle) be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for He has said, 'I will never leave you, nor forsake you.'

So that we may boldly say, 'The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'

  

GOODNESS OF GOD - Bethel Music

Who Encourages The Encouragers?

 

1 Samuel 30:6

 Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David encouraged himself in The LORD his God. 

    When everyone is against you, even the people you have surrounded yourself with, there is no better place to receive encouragement than from The Lord your God.

     Things go wrong and sometimes people need someone to blame, to hold accountable. These are the times we need to seek God's face and His presence. We run to The Father and He wraps His wings of mercy around us, sheltering us from the storms of criticisms, vitriolic language and persecutions. 

    At times, it may feel as if we have fallen into some deep pit, and we cry out to God; whereupon He reaches down and picks us up, holding us in His hands; holding us upright and strengthening us with Himself and His Word and His Spirit. Many are the days when a body feels as if it has fallen into a never ending abyss; God reaches way, way down and lays hold of us, cradling us in the palm of His hand. There is nowhere we go that God cannot reach us, when we cry out to Him. 

    Crying out to God is necessary to activate God's hand and Word in our lives and our hearts. Salvation is made in us when we believe and confess (out loud) that Jesus Christ is Lord. We must open up our hearts and speak aloud The Word of God to God in our hearing, where possible. I am aware that some folks cannot speak, or speak well, nor can some hear with their ears. But we can read The Word and The Holy Spirit will apply it to our open, listening hearts. 

    What is another way we encourage ourselves in our Lord? Prayer. Prayer with our God is the most vital form of communication we have. He is, after all, our heavenly Father and desires to hear from His children daily. He wants to meet our needs and grant us the desires of our hearts. He longs to spend quality, family time with us. We need to embrace Him and all that He has for us, is for us. 

    We encourage ourselves in The Lord, when we sing songs that glorify God; songs that lift up His Name; hymns and psalms that speak Scripture into us when we sing or read them. Music is vital to me. Ever since I got baptized in The Spirit during a revival, I cannot help but sing: even in my frail, sometimes failing voice, I will sing as long as I have breath to sing. 

    We encourage ourselves in The Lord when we encourage each other in The Lord. In 1 Samuel 23:16, Jonathan came to David and encouraged him in God. In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Paul encourages the church in Thessalonica, writing that they are to encourage each other and build each other up, edifying one another in The Lord. 

    To be encouraged in The Lord is to be strengthened and made firm/steadfast in The Lord. It is to hear The Word via The Spirit and set our faces like stone, immovable in our faith, unwavering in our belief. We will be called haters, stubborn, intolerable. And we will be hated. We will be, and currently around the world some of us are, beaten, tortured, jailed, killed. Our children may be taken from us or they may turn us in to the authorities. Families are divided and sometimes one's own family will do the killing. This Christian life is a tough life, but so worth the journey. 

Psalm 18:2

The LORD is My Rock, My Fortress, and My Deliverer. My God is My Rock, in Whom I take Refuge, My Shield, and The Horn of My Salvation, My Stronghold. 

Jude 1:20, 21

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in The Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God as you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life.

Statements of Faith - Grafted Into The Vine

 

JOHN 15:1-8

I am The True Vine, and My Father is The Husbandman (Vinedresser: worker of the soil, farmer). Every branch in Me that bears no fruit He takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, He purges (cleanses, prunes) it, that it may bear more fruit.

Now you are clean through The Word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in Me. 

I am The Vine, you are the branches: he that abides in Me, and I in him, will bring forth much fruit: for without Me, you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and withers; and men gather them,  and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be My disciples. 

    My prayer after studying this out is, "Lord, make me more fruitful.", knowing full well that having a more fruitful life sets God's hands in motion to prune from my life that which is not fruit-bearing. I asked for this because I feel unfruitful. There are days I feel useless and discarded. I don't feel fruitful at all. Am I where God wants me to be so that He can use me efficiently and effectively?

    My prayer life is vital to my fruitfulness: it is the rain and the sun on my fields. My Bible study time is vital to my fruitfulness: it is the Seed that gets planted in my fields. My social life is vital to my fruitfulness: it is the companionship of working side by side in my fields. What fields are these? The fields which are ripe unto harvest: the fields of souls who are searching for something to satisfy their hunger and thirst for Truth. 

    I live in Christ. I am able to live in Him because He lives in me. How is this possible? By faith in His Name for my salvation. His Name is Savior, Redeemer, Reconciler. His Name is Faithful and True. His Name is Living Water and Fountain of Life. His Name is Bread of Life and Mana From Heaven. 

    He satisfies the hunger of my soul. He slakes the thirst of my soul. He saved my soul when He died on the cross. He gave my soul new life, when He conquered death and walked out of the grave. He leads me, He feeds me, He strengthens me. In Him I am found and in me He shines His Light and His Love all through me and out of me, that all may see that Christ is alive in me. I am renewed in Him and now, I am strong again. 

    I am being made more fruitful even as I write this. And it is good to be in The True Vine where The Father can work on me with His loving hands, removing dead weight and giving my branch more bounce to carry sweeter fruit.