Be Still my soul, my heart be still, and know you are God.

Psalm 131.2

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

How hard is it to find time to be calm and letting go of all other distractions in life. It's easy to be too occupied by either some sort of activities or of stuff that is total meaningless in the long run. But the truth is that it is good for us to just be quiet, and place our worries or accusations on God. He can listen to everything that we want to say to him. He also wants to do more than listen, he wants to speak to us, from his loving heart towards us.

It's important to find time to be alone with God, so that we can hear his calm gentle voice speak to us. Specially in days with so much going on, we need this more. But there is a fight in us, just as with the child to become proper weaned, it's a process going on in our lives to let things go, and just seek fellowship with God.

God want us to grow spiritually, and not remain a baby the rest of our lives. To do that, we must first of all invite him in to our lives, but we must also seek him on a daily basis, and want to become more like him, and be in his presence.

God bless you!

Be filled with the spirit!

 Isaiah 40:31

"But those who keep waiting for the LORD will renew their strength. Then they'll soar on wings like eagles; they'll run and not grow weary; they'll walk and not grow tired." (ISV)

Can we say: "I charged my mobile phone last week, now I don't need to charge it anymore?" Of course not, and it's the same way regarding our spiritual life. It needs maintenance and care. It doesn't matter what you experienced yesterday, to day is a new dag, and we need to keep our spirit fresh, praying, that is having fellowship with our best friend, Jesus.

If we neglect this, God will not condemn us, but patiently wait for us to again draw near. But our inside will after a while dry up, and we will later drift away from the intim relationship we had.

Let us draw near, while it is day, and seek the Almighty's face. He has then promised to give us strength, to conquer new land, without getting tired.

A life free of bitterness!

James 12.15

"See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled" ( ESV)

Can a day pass us by, without us even showing some sort of positiveness, or even a smile in our face? If negative thinking is all that consumes us, we must be aware so that we do not break the spirit to those that are close to us.

If this is you, or you have this tendency, we must repent from this wrong behaviour. God wants us to live in close fellowship with Him, and how can we live close to God whom we do not see, while we hate our brother whom we see? It's so important to learn to forgive those that hurts us.

How can we start to turn this wrong mentality? By simply start thanking God for everything that He has given us, and for all or little we may have in this world. When we start praising God for who He is, and not look at our self, and keep doing so, negative thoughts will have to flee from us, seeking some other place to rest.

Take a good look at yourself!

James 1.22-24

"Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like." (MSG)

Jesus don't give us suggestions, He gives us commands! It's up to us if we either want to obey Him or not, or just treat his instructions as mere suggestions, only obeying if it does not cost to much.

 

Whatever He has told us to do, it's never a better way than obeying His call. He has called us all to go out and share the good news, the gospel, and pray for our neighbours to get reconciled with God. Let us take Him on his word. 

"But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do." (v. 25) (NIV)

When we obey him, we become more like Jesus, and we become more the way God planned for us to be. When we live in fellowship with God, and learn to trust Him more, and also trust Him enough to obey Him, whatever he wants of us, it produces joy in our lives, because that is what we are called to do. Then you will then learn more of, whom God is, and then you get to know yourself in a deeper way. Because God's ways are much greater and higher than our ways, and He knew us before we even was born.

Don't get weary in doing what is good!

2 Thessalonians 3.13

"As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good" (NIV)

Sometimes it seems like no one cares if we want to accept a life behavior we know in our hearts is not right. And since nobody tells us that this is not right, we keep on doing it. But things do not have to be like this.

We can all come (back) to Jesus, and repent from a life that is not pleasing to Him. He is graceful, and will not cast away a repented sinner.

This is something we not have to do just one time in our lives. There is a constant battle for our lives to not set the highest standard. And we can come up with a millions of reason why it's not so bad, but it is still wrong. If we know in our hearts it's not a good thing to do, walk miles away from it, don't let it come near your life.

When we do all this, we have a good conscience, and have peace at heart. It's also then much easier to not loose perspective, but keep on doing things that is pleasing to God.

Who is your master?

Matthew 6.24

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." (NIV)

It is so many things that wants to allure us to believe that, happiness can be bought by money. "If I only had this, I would be satisfied". But the fact that Jesus points out this so clearly; "you will be devoted to the one and despise the other", makes it clear you can not please God, if you have this mentality.

It is so easy to loose perspective in life. What is of importance? Jesus gives us a new way of looking at the issue of money when he says:

"Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (verse 20)

Why speak of heaven, when money will not be an issue in heaven anyway? We can live on this earth, and pay our taxes, our bills, and also wish for new stuff, but our hearts should not let these things take dominion in our lives. Our hearts should rather be directed upwards, believing He will give us everything we need, because He is our Provider. We should also know, that everything belongs to Him, including our self. And everything that we have, has been given to us by Him, meaning He can also take it from us.

It's still important to live for something greater than our selves.  If we spend all our money on our selves, it can be because our lives is too much involved around our selves. To give, breaks the habit off a self centred behaviour. And there we have Jesus as our primary example on the cross, when He gave his whole life. It shows the ultimate way of living, not for Him self, but for others. 

Let ut all follow in footsteps of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!