Rest In God’s Loving Arms

"He tends His flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart.” Isaiah 40:11

Look at the mountains; He created them. Look at the ocean; He formed it. Look at the beautiful flowers, trees, forest and the birds that flying in the sky; all of them are God’s masterpiece. He created them! If the hollow of His hand measures the oceans, imagine what His arms can do. Big enough to guide us, protect us, and hold us,

God’s arms are strong enough to do anything that He wants to do. His hands are powerful to control the situations in our life and whatever that is happening around us. Today you and I can rest in God’s loving arms. Knowing that He is Omnipotent (All powerful), Omniscient (All-Knowing) and Ever-Presence God, we can trust Him and commit our future in God’s loving hands.

No doubt that God has strong and mighty hands, but He is tender hearted, gentle and merciful to His beloved children. Like a shepherd who will strongly protect his flocks from the predators and gently lead the flocks to green pastures and quiet waters, God will strongly protect us from the enemy and gently gather us to His loving arms, “He tends His flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart.” Isaiah 40:11.

My Friend, I may not understand what you are going through in life but I have a message for you. TRUST GOD! God’s arms are strong and big enough to do many wonderful things in your life. He wants you to completely TRUST Him and REST in His loving arms. While you are resting in Him, God will arrange and make things beautiful in His timing for you.

Don’t hold back anything, let go to God and let God take control over everything in your life. The more you hold back, the more things will get complicated, but if you trust Him, He knows how to do it. Take the step of faith and give all your hurts, concerns, troubles, past mistakes and your life to Him and rests in His arms. He can to turn things around you for your benefit and His glory.

The Blaming Game

The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Genesis 3: 12-13.

Have you noticed when a problem or mistake takes place in a family or in a workplace or even in the place of worship, there will be many voices and fingers are being pointed to each other? It is none other than BLAMING others. When something goes wrong in our life, we have the tendency to find fault on others. I call it The Blaming Game…

Blaming or pointing fingers to others is not something new to mankind. The blaming game took place even from the very beginning of creation at the Garden of Eden. When God made the first man which is Adam and put him in the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam a commandment which is not to eat from that one tree, “Read - Genesis 2: 16.”

God gave the commandment to Adam directly not to Eve. It is Adam’s responsibility to teach his wife Eve about God’s commandment. Adam is responsible to lead, guide, encourage and help Eve to walk with God and to grow in the things of God. However, what happen at the Garden of Eden?

Eve was deceived by the serpent, and she ate the fruit which God commanded Adam not to eat (Read Genesis 1: 6). She also gave some to her husband and he also did the same thing. After that, when God questioned them about what they have done, both Adam and his wife Eve started to point their fingers to others and from there The Blaming Game started…

Eve blamed the serpent for her fall, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate." And Adam blamed Eve for his fall, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Adam not only blamed the women, but he involved God in this blaming game, “The woman you put here with me.” God gave Eve as a blessing and a good helper to Adam, but in his fear and mistake, Adam makes God’s blessing as a reason for his fall.

By right, Eve should be responsible for her own action instead of blaming the serpent and Adam should be responsible for his wrong move instead of blaming the women and God. Adam should say, “God, I messed up, I didn’t communicate properly with the women that you gave me, and I didn’t teach her all Your ways. It’s my mistake for not guiding her in Your ways. I am responsible for all this.”

Dearest, when something happens, it’s so easy to blame others instead of checking ourselves and change from there. We have to pause for a while and think whether we have done anything wrong, before point fingers to others. We are responsible for our own action. Many times, we can blame others and even blame God for our poor decisions in life. Let us stop the blaming game but be humble to admit our mistakes, to apologies and change from there. God will honor the humble…….

Let Go Of Your Regrets

"…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead." Philippians 3:13

‘BrainyQuote’ dictionary defined the word REGRETS as a pain of mind on account of something done or experienced in the past, with a wish that it had been different; a looking back with dissatisfaction or with longing; grief; sorrow; especially, a mourning on account of the loss of some joy, advantage, or satisfaction. FEELINGS of REGRETS will cripple us from moving forward and experiencing God’s best for our life. We should take inventory of past mistakes and learn from them but we should not let the feelings of regrets and guilt keeps us from excelling in our life.

There is no sin and no mistakes that you and I have ever committed that cannot be pardoned by the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even the world's number one sinner has the chance to be pardoned from all his or her mistakes through the pure blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest the Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. There is no doubt in God's forgiveness for each one of us and He remembers no more of our mistakes, "I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds." Hebrew 10:17.

But even though we knew about the truth that our Lord Jesus Christ has forgiven us, all of us have the tendency to dwell on our past mistakes and feel so guilty for what we have done. In our innocent feelings of dwelling on the past, we can become a great enemy to ourselves. You and I need to forgive our own self. Until we forgive ourselves, we can be a stumbling block to ourselves. Let us not hold ourselves from moving forward. Forgive yourself and accept the reality of who you are. Let go of all the disappointments and let God take charge of all our past and future. As we move on from here, one day when we look back of the journey that we walked in this life, we can only see His glory and His finger print in our life.

God is able to use anything to do something awesome in peoples' lives; even our past experiences can be used to help others. All the brokenness and the disappointments that we go through can be used for greater purpose in the future. You will be able to understand people who are going through hard times, brokenness and disappointments. And it will give us an opportunity to help them, to love them and even to minister to them.

Dearest, no matter what you have done in the past, God has already forgiven you. You need to forgive yourself and accept yourself. Give yourself a hug and give yourself a second chance. We all have done things which we are ashamed of and we live in the tension of what we have done. But the Bible says, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead." Philippians 3:13. Because our hope is in Christ alone, we can let go of our past regrets and look forward to what God has prepared for us. Forgive yourself and start a new chapter today. It is never too late to excel in life and to be who God created you to be.

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…" Hebrew 12:2
The moment you come to the end of the road and you do not know what is next, just be still before Him and turn your eyes upon Jesus. Only the Lord alone can make a way for us to move further when everything seems to be so dim.

Our strength, talents, education and everything that we own has the highest tendency to fail us at anytime but the Lord's promises will never fail. If you feel that your journey in this life is so full of difficulties that you wonder if you will make it to the end, just calm down and put your trust in Him and all will be well with you.

For both the earthly journey and the ultimate destination, you have His promises to enable you to travel with Him. You can count on His Word. He has promised that the difficulties of this world will never destroy us even we are badly affected by those difficulties because He has overcome everything, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." 2 Corinthians 4:8-9.

All that we need is Him and His Spirit in us to help us complete this journey. Every time darkness overwhelmed us, we need to remember that in the light of His glory and grace you will be able to see a new light of hope in that darkness.

Regardless of what you are going through in life today, everything is subject to change. In all situations, remember what the Word of God says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…" Hebrew 12:2. The author and perfecter of our faith means He is the One who begins and He is the One who will complete. Nothing else but from the starting point, in between and till the ending line, He is the one who holds our life.

When you are troubled don't look somewhere else but look at the One who holds you; the loving Lord Jesus, our author and the perfecter of our faith. Fix your eyes on Him, and surely He will fix your troubling soul. Then continue to stand on His promises and trust Him in all situations. In Him everything will be well with you.

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“When I feel I'm far away from You, You're just there just beside me. When I walked in my own ways, You're there walking together with me with Your loving arms on my shoulder, to bring me back into Your ways again. Lord, in the light of your glory, I found a new hope in this journey. You're forever faithful to me…"

God Is With Us In Our Dark Valleys…

God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

It’s easy to praise God when we are at the top of the mountain. Everything seems to be nice during good times. But when we are at the dark valleys, most of the time we begin to question, “God, why all these take place?” “God, where are, You?”

It is not our choice whether or not to face the dark valleys in life; it is part of life. However, we have a choice to respond to our darkest valleys. You and I have two choices, whether to continue to grumble, or to surrender our lives to Him. When we complain and grumble we will always question Him, “why, God?” but if we learn to surrender our lives to Him, we will be asking Him, “God, what would You want me to know and learn through this situation?”

Why the Loving God allows dark valleys in our lives? God in His infinite wisdom uses valleys to accomplish what He wants to accomplish in our lives. The Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent God, knows exactly what He is doing in our lives.

We read in Genesis about a young man by the name of Joseph who has gone through much trial and betrayal. He was hated by his own brothers and was sold into slavery. Joseph also spent many years in prison for something he didn’t do. Why did God allow Joseph, a righteous man, to suffer for many years? In the darkest valley, Joseph was being prepared for a significant opportunity that would make all the tough times worthwhile. Romans 8:28 is our promise that God will use all things together for our benefit.

If today you are at any valley, do not lose heart! God is with you in your valleys. As God says in the Bible, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5. God will walk with you in your valleys and He knows how to bring you out victoriously from that valley. After every valley you and I will come out stronger, more matured in Christ and be useful in His kingdom.