p>1. God’s Son shed his last drop of blood for you. God loves you with his whole heart. He loves you with every speck of his enormous love. That means no matter how much he loves others, he couldn’t possibly love anyone else more than he loves you.
Scripture makes no promise that you will always feel loved, nor that circumstances will always make it obvious that you are loved. God simply promises that you are loved. No suffering or tragedy will ever separate you from God’s love (Romans 8:35-39). A snap-shot in time proves nothing. Only eternity’s movies can adequately portray the infinitude of God’s love for you.
The more you love someone the more important that person is to you. So the fact that God loves you with his whole heart means you are more important to God than you could ever imagine.
2. Before God forgave us we were all spiritually dead. Scripture affirms that every person on this planet was dead in their sin. You can’t get any deader than dead. God couldn’t say, I prefer her because she’s a little less dead than him.
But through Christ we can be forgiven. When God looks at a forgiven person, he can’t find one sin. When you are forgiven, God can’t find a person on the entire planet, more forgiven than you.
So without Christ we were all equally dead in our sin and in Christ we are all equally forgiven.
3. God is all-powerful. That means he doesn’t need some people more than others.
If God could only use young people, or strong people, or rich people, or famous people, or educated people, then God must be so weak that he needs human strength; so poor that he needs us to give him a few dollars; so foolish that he needs human education.
4. The Lord loves using small and seemingly unimportant things. 1 Corinthians 1:26 says, ‘Look at what you were before God called you. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many of you had great influence. Not many of you came from important families. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and he chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose what this world thinks is unimportant and what this world looks down on and thinks is nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world thinks is important. God did this,’ the Bible continues, ‘so that no one could boast in his presence.’
In the Bible, the book of Jonah seems small and insignificant. It’s only 2-3 pages long. I often feel like that: small and insignificant. I have often felt so useless that I would have committed suicide if I wasn’t worried about having to face God afterwards. But the Bible would be very much poorer without this tiny book. And the Kingdom of God would be much poorer without you. In this tiny book we see God using a storm, a whale, a heartless, rebellious, moody man, a plant, and a grub. Are you less gifted than a grub? Then God can do mighty things through you. If God could use a storm and a plant and a grub, God is smart enough to use you. God is so powerful he can use anything to do his work.
No Christian is too old, too poor, too uneducated, too stupid, too sick to be gloriously used of God. We can’t explore this in depth here. For just one aspect of this, see Never too old for God.
Do you believe there is nothing God cannot do? Do you believe God could bring a dead person back to life? Do you believe God could bring a dead person back to life through your prayers? Those words ‘through your prayers’ don’t suddenly make God weak. Do you believe God can save thousands of souls? Then you must also believe God can save thousands of souls through you.
Either God can do the impossible through you, or he isn’t God.
Keep telling yourself, ‘There is nothing God cannot do through me.’
Heaven stands on tip toe waiting to see the astounding things you will achieve for the glory of God.
Highly favored, most blessed among women, a jewel in his crown. This royal princess always has his undivided attention, all of his kingdom is hers as well. She is clothed in a robe of righteousness, her feet walk upon holy ground, an aura of grace and peace surround her.
She speaks with authority, for she represents her father the king! His golden scepter is ever extended to her as she enters his holy presence. The king himself anoints her with precious ointment and perfume, her fragrance is a sweet aroma that he especially savors& she has captured his heart. He places a royal crown upon her head, signifying honor and nobility. All who gaze upon her are in awe of her radiance, for she reflects the brightness of the kings countenance. This daughter is not just any ordinary daughter, she is adorned with splendor and majesty, and her worth is far greater than rubies. The king would gladly give his own life for hers. Her father has set her above all her companions, because she is destined for greatness and outshines even the stars. This father who so adores her is not just a worldly king over an earthly kingdom. He happens to be ruler over all Heaven and Earth together. He reigns supreme over the entire universe& He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and she is seated with him on his royal throne. In the fullness of time, when he gathers all things unto himself on Earth and in Heaven, she will rule and reign with him throughout all eternity! Who is this princess, this cherished daughter of the Most High? She is YOU! Hallelujah, Amen and Amen!
I've known about Human Trafficking for a few years now...through these great small sessions and seminars in the Salvation Army Territorial Headquarters. They taught me how I actually live in the # 1 city for human trafficking in the United States, yes...Atlanta, GA...It was quiet heart breaking to know that these children are around my own daughter's age...6-12...and how they are horribly abused. Did I ever do anything about it you say? Unfortunately, all I could do was pray and donate money.
Yesterday...while attending my usual Wednesday meeting's at Fusion (Victory World Church), we had a great speaker, although for a short period of time, the Holy Spirit touched my heart through this speaker in a deep way....so deep that I cannot express it in words.
Mr. David Batstone, author of "Not for Sale" and president of Not for Sale Campaign... http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/who-are-we.html didn't give a huge lecture...it was more of a brief feeding of knowledge into our Spiritual brain, but a rude awakening to those hearts who had no idea all of this was happening at home. What threw me back, wasn't the trafficking humans nightmare since it wasn't new to me, but that Atlanta, GA is the # 5 city in the world for human trafficking. Especially since I actually chose to raise my daughter in this city over Los Angeles, CA where I was born and raised. My heart broke in tears while thinking, okay I grew up around gangs, drugs and many destructive families, and yes I'm sure even afar prostitution. But to receive the eye opener of how children are being trafficked for sex at such an early age and humans in general in OUR OWN BACKYARDS!
I remember having the same feelings at the Salvation Army seminar, but yesterday God planted a seed in my heart, ideas, a Spiritual feeling sensation that I can actually do something. This wasafter Mr. Batstone and Mike, one of our church's small group leaders, filled us with so much research, knowledge and yes why not, rubbed off that feeling that even little me "Can make a change".
So I ask you, my family in Christ, a prayer request....it's a planted seed, so help me pray for the Holy Spirit to guide me in all...I can't explain much yet, but please pray.
In addition, here a couple of websites I took note of while Mr. Batstone & Mike spoke. I haven't gone through all of them, but it's great researched information; hope you're impacted even if it's in a small way to help.
Thank you very much for taking time off to read this and I hope all churches, regardless of religion, come together as what we are...One Body of Christ...to end the reality of these children's living nightmare.
Loving and being loved are what make our lives worth living. Many people experience times in their lives when they feel unloved. During these times it’s easy to dwell on those negative thoughts, but allowing it to continue leads to unhappiness and depression.
Love is the energy of life. It is what motivates people to get up each day and keep going. Love gives life purpose and meaning. Everywhere you look you see people searching for love…but they’re looking in the wrong places. God is love, and they will never find what they’re looking for until they find Him.
People look for fulfillment in life in different ways. These ways may seem good at first, but eventually the unsuccessful search will leave them feeling frustrated, disappointed and empty. The only way they can find the true fulfillment they are so desperately seeking is to choose to walk in love—to actually put love into action by reaching out and loving others.
As soon as I made a commitment to God, I began to hear people talk about the importance of loving others. Since I wanted to live my life according to the Bible, I wanted to walk in love, but I just couldn’t. I had the urge…but no power to follow through. I always made elaborate plans but couldn’t carry them out.
Unfulfilled desire is often frustrating. I felt very frustrated and wondered what was wrong with me. I was impatient with people. I was legalistic, harsh, judgmental, rude, selfish and unforgiving—and that is only the beginning of the list. The harder I tried to walk in love, the worse I became.
I began to understand that I could not love others because I had never received God’s love for me. I knew in my head that the Bible said God loved me, but I didn’t feel His love in my heart. I wondered how God could love us as imperfect as we are.
God loves us because He wants to—it pleases Him. God loves us because it’s His nature to love, and He will always love us. He doesn’t always love everything we do, but He does love us. God’s love is unconditional. In fact, there’s nothing we can do to ever escape His love. God’s love is the power that forgives our sins, heals our emotional wounds, and mends our broken hearts.
Over time I came to realize that I am deeply loved by God simply for who I am, not because of any work I could do for Him. I could finally quit trying to earn His love by doing things I thought would make me more worthy of His love.
Once I began receiving God’s awesome, unconditional love, I was able to start loving Him in return and reach out to others more freely in love. Because God’s never-ending love was in me, I could give it to others without fear of ever running out.
Everyone in the world wants to be loved and accepted. And the love of God—that wonderful gift He freely gives us—satisfies that need. His love flows to us, and then it should flow through us to other people.
Now I see myself as a container full of blessings. I want to be the type of person who can pour out God’s love into the lives of the people around me. I’ve found that I’m always happier when I choose to make others happy.
In the Bible, God calls Christians the salt of the earth (see Matthew 5:13). He expects us to “season” the lives of those around us. All of life is tasteless without love. Love is the salt, the energy of life, and the reason to get up every morning.
Every day can be exciting if we see ourselves as God’s secret agents, waiting to sprinkle a little salt on all the lives we encounter. And we know that because we are deeply loved by God, we can never run out of love—no matter how much we give away.
Many of us who grew up in neglectful, invalidating, and abusive households never learned to appreciate ourselves. Instead of being taught that we were important, deserving, capable, lovable, good, and valid, we were taught the opposite.
Because of these conditions, we developed a negative inner perspective of ourselves. We came to believe that somehow, we were "never enough" because we did not receive enough validation to develop a positive attitude toward ourselves and those around us. We came to project being invalidated and rejected instead of being appreciated and accepted. Because of this feeling of "not fitting in", many of us ended up doing one of three things:
1) retreating from the world (withdrawing/denying/sedating/distracting)
2) rebelling against it or dominating (rebelling/controlling)
3) complying with whatever it was others wanted us to be so as to become "acceptable" (submitting)
The problem with all 3 of these "defensive" measures is that all of them reject the reality of what is and result in either our own isolation, self-rejection or abuse of others. We never realized we could validate ourselves whether others did or not and that our own opinions of ourselves and our sense of personal dignity was not dependant upon what others thought of us, but upon what we thought of ourselves. We could choose to approve of ourselves whether others did or not though for many of us, to do so would usually result in "punishment" which was really a nice way of saying abuse. Our spirits were broken and most of us had little choice but to conform at least until it was possible to leave our homes (prisons) in one way or another. We were virtually treated as slaves - comply or else! We submitted out of fear and shame.
It is difficult to want to be any part of a world when one's perspective of it is that it is unsupportive, abusive, and neglectful. It is said that many alcoholics for instance are the only people who treat loneliness with isolation. My reply to this is that the reason for this is that they do this because they perceive it as better to be alone than to be abused. They have not been supported in life so they have naturally developed the belief that they will not be. Simple experience has taught them that others are not validating, trustable and supportive so they simply give up trusting.
Learning to trust and appreciate ourselves and our own worthiness is key to developing an inner sense of Serenity - something that most of us were never taught how to do. We can learn to do this by developing creative outlets for our self-expression which can allow us to mirror back to ourselves and others our innate Talents and Truths. This self-validation is important if we are ever going to learn how to develop an inner calm and emotional security within ourselves.
Support groups are very important in filling our human need for love and in serving as the supportive family structure many of us never had. It can be very helpful to get us started in developing personal validation, but eventually, learning how to love ourselves even without the help of others can provide us with a way to feel valid even when these groups are not available. Developing an unconditionally loving and supportive Higher Power connection via meditation is another very powerful way to self-validate and is what I choose to do on a daily basis to feel grounded, secure, safe, and supported within myself. All I need do is close my eyes and connect with this Source whenever I need it. I cannot tell you how important this has been to me in developing a sense of Inner Serenity.
