Stretch your faith

The other day when I was praying, I received a message about stretching my faith. I heard, “Stretch your faith. Stretch your faith so it reaches higher altitudes of hope. Stretch your faith so it gets into greater depths in the oceans of blessings. Stretch your faith so it is wide enough to touch miracles that are coming from every side.” I meditated on that message for some time and I thanked the Lord for it. God is so generous with His wisdom and His revelation. I took that message to heart. I had needed to hear that. I believe everyone needs to stretch their faith. Everyone needs to trust God more. We have to truly work on our faith and on our connection to God. Faith connects us to God. Faith gives us an understanding of God. Faith believes without the shadow of a doubt. Faith allows us to see what’s invisible to the naked eye. Faith gives us a different pair of eyes. Faith enables us to see God at work in our lives even when nothing seems to be happening. The more we stretch our faith, the more we see the impossible made possible. We have a God who can do all things. He can do the impossible but it can be very hard for us to see that and to even believe it.

Jesus said that He couldn’t perform many miracles where people didn’t believe. Lack of faith prevents us from experiencing miracles. If we stretch our faith, we stretch the experience of miracles. We stretch the muscles of great possibilities. God can do so much in our lives and He is waiting for us to stretch our arms of faith and grab the blessings and the great things He wants to do in our lives. A mustard seed of faith is all we need. We need that seed to be planted and to grow. How do we go about doing that? First we should plant the seed in the Word of God. We need to water the seed with the Scriptures every day. We should prayerfully read the Bible and let it feed our faith so that it can be stretched. There is so much we hear and see every day and all this information can either kill the seed or help the seed get bigger. I try to shut down the world first thing in the morning and spend time stretching my faith by feeding on the Word. I spend time in isolation with God every day. I don’t let anything negative enter that time of faith stretching. I love it. I need it. I won’t stop doing it. My faith grows when I pray. When I pray I listen to God and I talk to God. That amazing exchange helps my faith. I cherish my prayer time. It gives me a boost and it helps my faith.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”* Faith is a conviction. A conviction is a firmly held belief or opinion. To have a conviction is to have a firm belief, a belief that can’t be shaken. We all have some strong convictions. We strongly believe certain things that are true to us and that are normal to us. Here is a simple example. We believe that when we put the right key in our door and we turn it, the door will open. It is a conviction. We have no doubt. It is normal and it is expected. Our faith should be the same way. It should be as firm as the belief that the key will turn and the door will open. As we stretch our faith, we can get to a place where anything we ask in prayer, we believe we receive and it is as easy as the turning of the key. We believe that the door of blessings will open. We believe that the door of opportunities will open. We believe that God will open doors that no one can shut. Stretching our faith does open more doors and yields amazing blessings. Friend, work on stretching your faith. Spend time in the Word. Spend some isolated time with God. Pray, praise and be thankful every day. Your faith will reach higher altitudes and depths of blessings that seem impossible but that will be possible. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Hebrews 11:1*; Romans 10:17; Luke 1:37

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10 nuggets of wisdom for your Saturday (Part 278)

As hard as it seems to be right now, there is a solution and there is an answer to your prayers. Keep going and keep trusting God. Something good is coming!

You are welcome in God’s house. Make it your dwelling place. Stay there. Enjoy it and become familiar with every single room of blessings that are in His house of love!

Today’s pain doesn’t compare to tomorrow’s joy. God will give you a lot of joy and wipe away the tears. Keep trusting Him during the difficult times and He will give you joyful times!

A drop of God’s love in an ocean of hatred is all it takes to make things better. Pray for God’s love to contaminate the waves of hate and discrimination. Pray for love to prevail!

God is knocking on the door of your heart. He wants access to your spirit and He wants to fill your heart with His presence. Let Him in!

God will show up when you least expect it and He will keep on coming through. Expect Him to step into the situation. He will change everything around for the best!

Take the time to be with Jesus. Take the time to pray, praise and worship. Take the time to say thanks and to celebrate the life the Lord has given you. Take the time to be still and to know that He is God!

God thinks you are beautiful inside and out so let that truth resonate in your heart. Let it become your meditation as you learn to love yourself the way God loves you!

The Lord repeats Himself. He does wonders over and over again. He blesses us over and over again. Let’s praise Him for being a good repetitive God!

God can take your life and turn it into an eternal life of blessings, joy, triumph and victory in Jesus. Trust Him with your life!

Suggested reading: Psalm 150:6; 1 Corinthians 16:14; 1 John 3:18

Think outside the negative box

One thing  that never changes is that God is good all the time. Even when our lives are not good, He remains good and He is still God. We tend to see God differently when bad things happen. Negative events give God a negative image. That is the goal of the enemy. He aims at destroying God’s image and making Him look bad. He wants you and I to believe that God is powerless and He has no control of our lives. He wants us to put God in a box of disappointment and frustration. That box stays wide open and when the going gets tough, we focus on that box and we put all negative thoughts and feelings into it. Before we know it, we have a box of despair and we put God in there. We associate God with failure when in reality He never fails. I have seen that box many times. It is in my mind and I am learning to think outside that box and to not go near it. That mental box is very destructive and very damaging. It is the box of overthinking. A box that we are way too familiar with. It is almost an expectation. We expect to spend time in that mental box and sometimes it is even comforting. There is no comfort in negativity. Only chaos and confusion reign in negativity. God is always good, friend. He makes anything and everything good. When we bring Him into our situation and we trust Him, He makes things good again. Today I want to encourage you to think outside the negative box and to remember that God is always outside the box and He is always good.

I used to be an expert at spending time in the negative box. I lived there. I resided there. It was my habitation and it even became my refuge. I would shut down and spend time overthinking. I was so good at it that people around me couldn’t tell I was in that box. I knew how to smile when inside I was sad. That box was limited. It had limited space and it limited my thinking. I could only think within the walls of that negative box. The same negative thoughts kept coming. Problems were abundant in that box and no solution was in sight. I put God in that box. I put Him in the middle of my misery. I would think about how God had let me down and He appeared to be very small in that box. The enemy even made me think that God had abandoned me and I couldn’t rely on Him. Friend, we ought to renew our minds with the Word of truth. It is that Word that set me free. The Lord told me in His Word that He was greater than the enemy that lived in this world. He said that there was always hope and there was always God. He showed me that He lived in my heart, in my spirit and He was bigger than those negative thoughts. He did not belong in the box. He wasn’t the cause of my problems and He could certainly solve them. God is good all the time. God is good when life is bad. That statement helped me a lot. I took God out of that mental negative box and put Him on a pedestal. I thought outside the box and it saved me.

Today you might be deep in that box because of your circumstances. You might see no way out and you might have given up on God. God has not changed. He has not left you. He has not given up. He knows and trusts that nothing is impossible with Him. Join Him on that train of thought. Believe that He is the same yesterday, today and forever and rely on Him completely. Pray to Him and ask Him to guide you out of that box. You are blessed even in the middle of your mess like they say. God is with you. God is blessing you. God still loves you. God will help you. Think in terms of deliverance and freedom. That is where God is. He is the God of deliverance and freedom. He will get you out of that mess. Keep thinking about His miracle working power. Tell yourself that nothing is impossible to Him. Lift Him up and He will lift up the ban that has been put on your thinking. You will be able to think positively again and have hope and confidence. Think outside  the negative box and think in line with the Word of God. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Proverbs 17:22; Philippians 4:4-7; 2 Corinthians 10:5

10 nuggets of wisdom for your Saturday (Part 277)

God’s righteousness is like the mighty mountains and His justice like the great deep. God’s love for you is bigger than anything that will ever come against you and He will make sure that His Justice prevails in your life!

God can give you peace in the middle of turmoil. He can give you joy in the middle of your mourning. He can give you hope in the middle of a dark night. God can give you blessings when you think you don’t deserve anything!

Fear not. God is your shield and your protector. He covers you and blesses you wherever you are! You have nothing to worry about!

Your faith in God will open doors that you thought were shut before you trusted God. Keep your faith strong and amazing blessings will unravel before you!

God blesses you! You are blessed and you are filled with grace. You are blessed and you are a blessing to others. You are blessed and you are a fountain of joy. You are blessed and you are highly favored.

God will wink at you and show you what He did in secret. Smile back and thank Him for working behind the scenes when you thought He was silent.

God sees how wonderfully and beautifully you were made. Ask Him to show you your beauty so you can yourself through the eyes of His love!

God can do anything anytime so trust Him all the time. Do not lean on your own understanding but rely on Him in all things!

You will have peace again. God is going to turn things around and you will be on top of the world again looking out on a sea of blessings. Stay encouraged!

Greater is the One who lives in you than the enemy that is in this world. You have power within you to make it in this world and it comes from God Himself. Stay encouraged!

Suggested reading:Psalm 34:4-5; Matthew 8:25-27; Luke 1:29-31

What I am learning about my mind

Thank God for His lessons and His teaching. I feel like these days I am learning a lot from the Lord. I am learning about myself and I am learning about Him and how He operates for lack of a better word. I have been getting lessons straight from the Bible. I have increased my Bible reading in the past few weeks and I am grateful for the revelation and all information I have received. One of the biggest things I am being taught is the power of the mind and the power of our words. I didn’t know anything about the mind as a young Christian. No one told me that what I thought about mattered. It is written in the Bible but those passages never stood out to me and were never taught to me. I knew about prayer and I knew about praise. For a long time the mind piece was missing from my spiritual life. Who would have thought that our minds could impact our spiritual lives? It makes a lot of sense now and it is something we have to deal with over and over again and we can’t ignore it. Sometimes everything is fine and we have nothing to worry about until the mind gets in the way and creates scenarios that hold no truth. That is what I have been dealing with and I know God is putting me to the test and He wants me to master the power of the mind. He wants you to master the power of the mind as well. We are all invited to deal with the mind and find peace with the topic. Our minds are powerhouses and we better make sure that they are powerhouses for the Lord and not for negativity. What we host in our minds should be scrutinized and looked at closely.

I have been in situations where I could praise the Lord with all my heart and pray like there is no tomorrow and all of a sudden I am hit by a negative flow of thoughts. I hold on to them and I go through them one by one allowing them to become more real to me and to take a life of their own. That is a dangerous process that many of us are familiar with. We don’t always take the time to think about what we think and we let negativity take control of the narrative of our lives. God tells us to renew our minds. We are to renew our minds with the Word of God and with the help of the Holy Spirit. Recently the Lord has emphasized the fact that my problem came from my mind. I had heard it before but it made a lot of sense when I heard it this time. He has been telling me to fight those thoughts and speak against them. Speaking against the enemy is something I refer to a lot in my messages because it does work. It does wonders. The other day I said out loud that I had nothing to worry about and that God was in control. I said it many times because my mind had been filled with the wrong thoughts and dealing with them took time and determination. I couldn’t give up and I couldn’t stop saying what God was saying about my situation. My problem was in my head. It was clear and it was what I needed to hear. Think about what you think, friend. Weed out the negative thoughts and keep weeding them. They can be relentless especially if they have turned into a powerhouse. They can be like castles that need to be torn down. The tearing down will take place when we are strong and determined to do it. We can’t be passive when it comes to our thoughts.

What helps a lot is creating positive powerhouses that take up a lot of space.  The best way to do it is to proactively feed our minds with the good Word of God. We need to feed our minds the truth. We need to fill our minds with encouragement, hope, peace, revelation from God and good news. The good news of the Gospel is wonderful. We can find great sermons and messages but nothing beats the one and one time with God. Time spent with Him in prayer, in Bible study and in praise is key. I know you have heard it all before but just like me, you need to hear it every day. It was important yesterday and it is still important today. This truth will never change. Create a powerhouse of positivity but listen to the right things. The right things are Christian music that focuses on Jesus and that exalts Him. Some Christian music is more about us than it is about the Lord and although it can sound beautiful, it doesn’t do much for our spiritual growth. There are so many words in the Bible that are great manna from Heaven and we can feed on those words. Find passages that speak to you and make them your mantra. You will build a powerhouse of hope in your mind if you diligently turn to those words, listen to them, speak them and apply them. I need to keep working on the powerhouse of positivity and hope. I am glad that I was made aware of that need and I hope this message helps you see what you need in your mind today. The problem often lies in your mind, friend. Think about what you think and make a change. Renew your mind with the hope and the power of God’s words. Don’t be passive when it comes to your thoughts. They affect your spirit and they affect the direction of your life. Think about it! May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Proverbs 23:7; Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23

Believe before you see

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”* Jesus spoke those words. Jesus spoke that truth. He told His disciples that believing before seeing was important. This is still true today. When we pray, we should believe that we have received what we are asking. Now, “whatever you ask” doesn’t mean that you can ask for a unicorn and expect it to show up. It doesn’t mean that you can ask for anything that seems pleasing to you without consulting God. We need to pray and ask God in agreement with His Word. We need to be aligned with His promises and with who He is. This is why it is crucial to know the Word of God so we know what to ask. Sometimes I have no idea if what I am asking is in line with God’s Word so I pray. I pray for the Holy Spirit to show me the truth and to reveal to me if what I want is God’s will. Sometimes it takes time for me to find out. Sometimes it is a very quick answer. I strongly encourage you to ask God for clarification, for guidance, for insight and for confirmation. He will confirm His will. He will clarify your situation. He will give you some great insight about your request and He will guide you throughout the process.

Friend, once you know that your request is in line with God, ask God in prayer. That is the next step. Don’t hesitate to go to the Father in the name of Jesus and ask Him. We often miss that step. We wish very strongly but we don’t actually pray and ask God. Why ask Him? Doesn’t He already know? He does but He loves to hear your request. He loves to hear your voice. He loves to see that you depend on Him. Praying to God is an act of faith. We could choose to turn to someone else or to something else but when we pray, we demonstrate that God is the One who matters the most. Let’s be sure to always pray to God before we turn to others for help. Prayer should be number one because our Lord is number one. Whatever you are going to ask in prayer, the Lord knows about it. He knows how your issue started. He knows where it is coming from and He knows how to fix it and how to provide for you. Take it to the Lord in prayer knowing that God knows everything there is to know about your request and He is more than capable to help you and to get you through anything. He can do anything!

Believing before you see is not what we are used to. It sounds counterintuitive and it is not what our minds want to do. It is praying with faith. Praying with confidence in the Lord and in what He can do. When you think about it, if you trust and believe that God can do anything and that He is all-powerful, you shouldn’t doubt that He will answer your prayer. Focusing on believing. Increase your belief bucket. We all have a bucket that can be filled with fear or filled with faith. We should work on filling up the bucket with faith so we can believe before we see. Faith gives us eyes that see beyond the natural. Faith believes before it sees and it invites us to join in that mindset. We can’t expect miracles if we don’t have a bucket big enough to receive the miracles. We need to empty ourselves of ourselves and fill up with the Lord. He is the King of hope. He is the author of our faith. He tells us to see what’s not there and to believe that it is there. Faith is great and we can have faith when we stand on Jesus and we keep on listening to what He has to say. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God. Let’s be exposed to the Word. Let’s be touched by the Word. let’s be filled with the Word and we will believe before we see. My prayer for you is that your faith keeps increasing and that you have the ability to believe before you see and that you trust that the Lord has already answered your prayers. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Mark 11:24*; Romans 10:17; Hebrews 11:1-6

10 nuggets of wisdom for your Saturday (Part 276)

The love that died for you on the Cross came back to life so know that God’s love for you is eternal, unconditional, unbeatable and it will live forever!

Don’t worry and don’t be afraid. God is going to protect you and bless you. Walk on faith and walk in peace. You are well-surrounded and you are blessed wherever you go!

God loves blessing you so let Him do amazing things for you. Trust Him. Believe Him. Your faith will move Him!

Jesus will never change. His love for you will never change. His promises to you will never change. His resurrection power will never change. His truth will never change!

Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving and He will never stop giving you His unconditional love. Receive Him. Embrace Him. His love is the gift that will bless you tremendously!

The road might be tough and many obstacles might be on the way but the Lord will always make a way. Keep walking. Keep going. Something amazing is on its way!

God will never change but He will change you if you keep spending time with Him loving Him, worshiping Him, talking to Him and listening to Him!

Your earthly expectations of who God is will not help your faith. God is above and beyond the human condition and we should expect Him to transform our human experience and turn it into a divine reality.

Know that He is God and He can fix anything. There is nothing your God can’t do. There is nothing your God can’t fix. He is the God of the impossible and that will never change!

Today God is going to be with you all day long. He is going to help you face anything and everything. Put your trust in Him. He won’t let you down!

Suggested reading: Proverbs 4:7; Psalm 37:30; James 3:13

There is so much love coming from God

There is so much love coming from Heaven. So much love coming from God. There is also a lot of interference that prevents us from experiencing that love. First there is the enemy of course. He stands in the way and he tries his best to make us think that God is not love. He tries to make us feel like Heaven doesn’t exist and we can’t expect anything from God. Those lies are seen as realities in many parts of the world. The enemy is sneaky. He also makes people believe that he doesn’t exist himself and that there is no hell to be shunned. This lie is linked to the lie that God is not love and that God doesn’t exist. The enemy is the prince of this world and by making people believe he doesn’t exist, he makes them love him, love his appearance. He hides behind a worldly facade. He dominates the minds by displaying a world where there is no evil and no God. It is the concept that anything goes and nothing is bad. He portrays himself as a neutral god of this world. If there is no evil, then there is no need to be saved and that is what he attempts to broadcast around the world. There is a God. There is a Savior. There is evil. There is good. There is a devil. There is a hell. There is Heaven. All these elements exist but the One that matters the most is the Lord Jesus. He is not an element. He is the living God and He is there to save whoever believes in Him. We ought to go back to the basics of who God is and who Jesus is. He is Love. He is the Savior of the world who is L ove. Today I want to remind you that the love of God is powerful. It is real. It is amazing and it is directed to you. 

There is so much love coming from God and you can receive that love. Know what the interferences are and deal with them. Don’t fall for the lies of the enemy like I mentioned before. Fill your heart with the truth of the Word of God. In His Word, you will get a better understanding of His love. He did it all for love. He died for you because of love. He went to hell and conquered death because of love. He came back from the dead so that you could have eternal life. His love for you is stronger than death. Think about that. Death seems so final but Jesus defeated what we knew as the final stage. He took that stage and nullified it. Whoever believes in Him will not go through spiritual death but they will live forever with Him. Next time you are facing a situation where there seems to be a final stage and that stage is bad, think about the power of the love of God. His love saved you and it can save the day again today. You don’t have to suffer and live in mental torment. You can torment those negative thoughts with declarations of victory and of the love of Jesus. Love won and it is with you today. It is always with you. Victory through God’s love is always with you.

There is so much love coming from Jesus but every time you focus on your problems, there is some major interference with the Lord’s love for you. When we magnify our problems, we put the Lord in a box that we close and that is hard to open. That box becomes smaller and smaller the more we focus on our problems. God is an out of the box God with love that is bigger and stronger than any issues we might be dealing with. The love that comes from Him can destroy the attacks of the enemy. No weapon formed against you can prosper when you fix your eyes on Jesus and believe that He has the final say. His love will have the final say. All that wonderful love that is coming to you is there for a reason. You are the reason why this love exists. God sent His Son for you. You are not going to lose with His love on your side. You are not going to be buried under a pile of trials and tribulations. There is so much love coming from God that nothing can stand in the way of His blessings for you. All you have to do is keep going and keep believing. Keep trusting that His love is for you and that it has paved the way for amazing moments and great blessings. There is so much love coming from God and you are the blessed recipient of that love. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: John 3:16;  Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:19

Love comes first

You are meant to do great things for the Lord. If you believe in Jesus and you take Him at His word, you will do greater things than He did when He was on earth. This might sound like a tall order and you can’t imagine doing greater things than Jesus but that is what He said.  Now, you can start at a lower level. You can start by striving to be the image of Jesus. You can start by representing Him and by spreading His love and His message. Jesus is good all the time. Jesus is the ultimate goodness. Jesus is love. Jesus is love all the time. Being like Jesus is being love. He doesn’t love people based on their looks. He is not an instagram fanatic who likes you because you fit into a certain mold of human perfection. To Him you are perfect. He loves you for you. He loves you period. These statements will probably rub some religious minds the wrong way. The truth is Jesus is unconditional love and if we are going to be more like Him, we are going to have to learn to be more unconditional. It is a very worthy goal and that is something we can all pursue. You see, as believers and followers of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit and we have the fruit of the Spirit. Love is the most important fruit of the Spirit. Love comes first and that is what we should keep in mind. Let’s be the image of love so that God’s reflection can be seen in whatever we do, whatever we say and whatever we think. You and I can be the images of Jesus that people will see. Some people will never get to know God until they meet someone like us. Let’s do it right by God and spread His love. God should be known for love before anything else. The signs and wonders, the miracles and the blessings of the Lord are amazing but love should come first. Love is always first with Jesus so let’s be carriers of His powerful love before we dive into the supernatural.

I once heard a famous preacher say that the love message of the Gospel is not a popular message. People tend to look for the supernatural and the great deeds of the Lord. God’s love is supernatural. It is not like the love of the world. God’s love is the greatest deed there is. Think about what Jesus did. Think about His ultimate sacrifice. That was pure love. That was the best example of love. An unconditional love that died for our sins. An unconditional love that welcomes everyone. An unconditional love that conquered death forever. An unconditional love that saved the world. That love, dear friend, is in you and me. That love needs to be awakened and to be expressed every single day. We ought to put God’s love first. It should come before our desires, our feelings, our emotions, our requests and our needs. It should be the main need we have. A need to touch the world with God’s goodness. A need to heal the broken-hearted with words filled with love. A need to see Jesus glorified through the love that He put in us. God’s love is a miracle. God’s love is the biggest miracle of them all. When we walk in faith and we walk in love, we walk in power and we walk in miracles. Anything can happen when we have faith and love. Faith without love is nothing. Faith without love is faith without Jesus. We can’t take Jesus out of our spiritual equation. He matters the most. His love matters the most. His love comes first.

Today you and I have the power to make someone’s day by showing them love. Love should be the language we speak. A few words of love and encouragement can go a long way.  Let’s pray that we have the correct words. Let’s pray that the Holy Spirit can flow through us and touch the people around us with His love. Let’s be sure that love is what people hear when we speak and what people see when we go about our daily activities. Walking in love is the best way to walk. Love is not selfish. Love helps others. Love prays for others. Love smiles. Love doesn’t frown. Love is welcoming. Love is giving. There is so much love that needs to be released in this world and you and I can be part of this massive release. Love should always come first and we should keep that truth in mind. My prayer for you is that you are a vessel of love that mirrors Christ. I pray that God’s love is what you put above everything. I pray that you share the heart of Christ for the world and that you love people unconditionally. You are a blessing and a force of love to reckon with. Let God’s love take control of you and keep putting it first. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: John 15:13; 1 John 4:8; 1 Peter 4:8

The Good Shepherd watches over you

Today God is on your side. Tomorrow God will be on your side. You have nothing to worry about. You will always have God. You will always have the One who came back from the dead. You will always have the One who is the gate to Heaven. Last night, I was reading John chapter 10 and I felt very inspired by that chapter. I was taken into a spiral of hope and bliss as I was reading the chapter. Jesus talks most of this chapter and He explains to His disciples that He is the gate. He tells them that He is the way and that He is the Shepherd and we are His sheep. I am so glad that we have Jesus. I am so glad that He is the gate to eternal life and He is constantly with us. This message about God being present all the time has been a recurring theme in these past few months. I believe it is crucial that we remember that God is with us all the time. It is important that we understand what that means. Jesus, the gate for His sheep is an everlasting presence. The Good Shepherd watches over His sheep all the time. Friend, if Jesus is your Savior, you are part of His sheep and He is watching over you. You have this amazing Lord who takes care of you and who will never lead you astray. He will always protect you and bless you. You might need to hear this message today and I encourage you to listen to it over and over again. The Good Shepherd is your Shepherd so it doesn’t matter who is against you. You have Jesus. You are all set!

Jesus tells us that whoever enters through Him will be saved. I see Him as a huge gate to Heaven. I see and picture a huge gate to eternal life. Now, the gate is not for later when we go to be with the Lord. Jesus, the gate, is a present Lord. He is your Savior today and you are saved today. You are saved and you will remain in His presence. The Good Shepherd is your refuge and your Rock today. You are blessed today. You are loved today. You are covered by the blood of Jesus today. You are favored today. You might be going through a season of pain, trials and depression but that doesn’t change that you have the Good Shepherd. You are the sheep and the Shepherd is here to take care of you so give Him everything that is bothering you. Hand Him your fears, your pain and your anxiety. He is not going to ignore your prayers. Thank Him for being such a Good Shepherd. Trust that He is in charge of you. You are not in charge of your life. Jesus is! Think about that. Meditate on it. It will change the way you approach life and it will bless you tremendously. Your Good Shepherd is the best One there is and He is extremely good at what He does. What He does is love you and watch over you!

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”* What a blessing that Jesus came to give back what the devil had stolen. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, did a tremendous job on the cross and through the resurrection. The thief had stolen life. Eternal death was what we could expect but Jesus changed the narrative. He rewrote history and gave us a way out of this dismal predicament. He came so that we may have life to the fullest. The Good Shepherd gives us a good life on steroids. It is not the life that the world provides. It is life from Heaven. You and I can experience a life from Heaven here and now. We can have peace, joy, love and hope galore today because that is what the Good Shepherd supplied. He did it all. He did His job and now He is with us and He wants us to enjoy eternal life with Him. This doesn’t mean that we will not have problems but it means that we have the Good Shepherd to help us deal with any problem. Today you are highly blessed, friend. Today you are highly loved. Today you are more than a conqueror through Christ. Today you can do all things through Christ. Today you are saved. Today you are a blessing. Today you are under the protection of the Good Shepherd. Enjoy your life with Him. Be sure to sustain a life of celebration of the Good Shepherd. Praise Him! His love for your endures forever! May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Luke 19:10; John 6:33; John 10:10