There are some truths in life that cannot be avoided.  One such truth is that not every one wants you to succeed in life; some people might even go so far as to sabotage you and will do whatever they can to discourage you and try to get you to give up on what God has put in your heart to do.  The Bible tells us that the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy, and Satan uses whoever and whatever he can to keep you from your destiny.

It is important that you do not give in to your flesh when dealing with your enemies.  You may not be able to stop them from criticizing you, but what you can do is to give them up to your heavenly Father and let God defend you.  Believers have one common mission while on this earth and that is to tell the lost about the amazing grace of Jesus Christ.  The world we live in is in desperate need of Jesus but that is one message Satan wants to stop from spreading. You must carry out your mission inspite of this challenge.  We hear a lot about bullying today and how determental it can be, but God has told us how to respond to harrassment.  We are to shake it off.  Do not let negative talk cause you to compromise or stop you in your tracks.  If God be for you, who can be against you?  You are a child of God and you must let the world see what makes you different.

Jesus Christ endured much while on this earth.  He was misunderstood, disrespected and dishonored but he kept his eyes on the prize.  He came into this world knowing that he had a job to do and that if he did not do it, it would change the course of history.  He travelled about spreading the good news and after sending out his disciples he told them to shake the dust off of their feet after entering any house that did not receive them.  We are to do the same.  You have a mission and you must not let anyone or anything hinder you from completing your mission.  Stay focus, keep the faith and leave people and their negative reactions to the God of heaven and earth.

The most important thing you will ever do after accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is to know what the will of God is for your life and to do it.  It is human nature to plan our lives according to what we desire, but ever believer should never make such plan without first knowing what God’s plan is.

One thing you can be sure of is that God’s plan for you will be different than what you might think.  God’s plan will not always seem logical, comfortable or easy -just ask Abraham, Moses, Gideon, David, Joseph and many other godly men of the Bible who have gone on before us.  God’s thoughts are much higher than our thoughts, but it is the responsibility of the believer to not only know the will of God, but obeying the will of God is just as important.  How do we know what the will of God is?  God will order your steps through His Word, through His Spirit, through other believers speaking into your life and through circumstances that will push you forward into a new direction.  If we are selfish and do not lay down our own plans, we will never be able to see God’s plan, for we must surrender and submit to God’s plan if we are to live victoriously.  The result of submitting to God’s plan for your life will result in your achieving fulfillment, peace and victory in an amazing way.

God honors faith because faith honors God, and it will take faith, active faith, to trust God and let Him take control over every aspect of your life.  If you find that you are at a stand still and you feel like there is something missing from your life, seek God with your whole heart and ask God to reveal His plan and purpose for you.  Then submit and obey and when it is all said and done, you would have accomplished what many others don’t know how to do – you will be living a life that brings glory and honor to God.

I’m sure that you have heard the saying that no matter how bad you have it, there is someone out there who has it worse than you do.  Therefore, you ought to be thankful for what you do have instead of dwelling on what you don’t have.  The Bible tells us that we should be thankful in all things; meaning no matter what the circumstances are, you should be thankful to God not for the circumstances, but for the fact that He has promised never to leave you.  In essence, you will never be alone whether you are facing a family crisis, a health crisis or a financial problem.  God has promised to be there with you and to help you, so you do not have anything to fear.

It is a waste of energy to constantly think about what you don’t have or wish that your circumstances were different than what they are.  Every good and perfect gift comes from above. There is nothing to gain when you are in that state of mind.  Life will pass you by and you will miss precious moments that are right in front of you if you don’t open your eyes to see the blessings you do have.  No one has been promised tomorrow.  God extends His grace and mercy to you every day that He wakes you up, and for those of you who have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you also have the awesome blessing of having your sins forgiven and you can look forward to spending eternity in Heaven.

The children of God should make every day a thanksgiving day and not wait until the world designates one particular day of the year to be thankful.  As you go about your normal activities this week, stop and thank God for what He has done for you and for what He has planned for you.  You will realize that God has been so good to you and because of His everlasting love for you, you have much to be thankful for.

Psalm 34:10 contains an amazing promise from our heavenly Father.  God has promised that for everyone who seeks Him, they shall not lack any good thing. Can it get any better than that?  Yes, it can for in Malachi 3:11, God has also promised that He would rebuke the devourer for our sakes so that Satan will not be able to destroy the fruit of our ground, and we will reap our harvest in due season.

God is faithful, and what He has promised He will deliver – you can count on it and many, many people have already done so, and many, many people do so even now.  It’s easy for us to get distracted with the activities of our  daily lives and give to God whatever we have left at the end of the day, but God wants us to show Him how much we love Him by seeking Him first, and He even offers a reward for doing so.  The one thing that we can always count on is change; people change, circumstances change but God will never change, and who better to take care of your needs and protect you and everyone you love, than the Lord God Almighty?  John 10:10 tells us that ‘the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus has come that we might have life and have it more abundantly.’

Seek God with your whole heart and watch how He fulfills His promise to you.  You can rest in the fact that God is God and that nothing is impossible for Him.  You do not have to live in fear wondering if you are going to have enough to survive.  With God as your partner, everything you need will be given to you ‘according to His riches in glory.’  Make it a point to do your part and believe that God will do His, after all He is the ‘promise keeper.’

At some point in our lifetime, each of us will find ourselves in a waiting room.  Before you can see your doctor you will spend time in the waiting room.  Before surgery, you will find yourself in a waiting room, and one of the most frustrating things about the waiting room is you don’t know how long you will have to wait.  Patience is a virtue and not all of us possess it yet.  Society has groomed us to want and expect things now which tends to adversely affect our attitude while we are waiting.

God also has a waiting room.  You might be in His waiting room today waiting on Him to answer your prayer or bring your dream into reality, but if we are to receive divine care, we must be willing to wait for only God knows the right time and place to meet your needs.  You don’t get to know all the details of how and when God will show Himself in your life, but you must have faith that He will make Himself known to you.  You must stand on His Word and trust Him because He knows the plans that He has for you, and sometimes to perfect His plan, you must spend time waiting.  He will purify your motives if need be and humble you if necessary to make sure that when He does show up, you are in the position that you need to be in to receive all that He has for you.

Make good use of your time in God’s waiting room.  Draw closer to Him; read His Word and pray that His will be done in your life.  It’s better to wait on God than to get ahead of God and make something happen before it’s time.  Your strength and your ability to handle what comes next can only be gained after spending time in God’s waiting room. So wait on the Lord and you will receive God’s promise to you right on time.

The great baseball player, Yogi  Berra, had a saying that became famous and is one of my favorites “it’s not over yet!” How true is this statement when applied to God.  The Lord Jesus Christ was constantly teaching his disciples that there is nothing impossible with God if we only believe, and that is still a lesson that many Christians have yet to learn. All things are possible with God, and because God has everything under His control, there is and will always be hope.

Jesus was told that a dear friend of his, Lazarus, was ill but he did not immediately go to his bedside.  Jesus spent two additional days where he was because he knew that Lazarus’ sickness would in the end bring glory to God.  Even after being told that Lazarus had died, Jesus still believed that there is nothing impossible with God.  Jesus did go to see Mary and Martha and found them and the whole village in mourning.  Their pain touched him so that the Bible tells us that ‘Jesus wept.’  Jesus wept for their unbelief and not because Lazarus had died. Jesus glorified his Father by praying for Lazarus in the presence of the family so that they would know that what they were about to witness was because of the power of Almighty God.  Jesus called out to Lazarus to come forth and he did. God knew that raising Lazarus from the dead as opposed to healing him of his sickness, would have a greater impact on the faith of all concerned and it did.

You might feel like it is all over for you – your job situation, your family concerns or it could be a health issue with you or with someone you love, but you must believe that God has everything under His control.  From your perspective you might experience a delay but God knows the exact time to show up and He will never be too late.  Never stop believing and never stop hoping no matter what the circumstances might look like.  Stand on your faith and tell Satan that “it is not over yet!”

Jesus has told us that in this world we would have trouble, but He also told us not to become anxious about our trouble because He has overcome the world.  Every Christian knows that Jesus has said that but yet, they worry – about everything.

Worry does not solve our problems; nor does the lack of worry take away our problems, so how can we obey Jesus and at the same time solve our problems?  God is the antidote for anxiety.  Instead of focusing on the problem, we should focus on the one who can solve all problems for nothing is impossible with Him. Worrying robs us of our strength and our peace.  God has promised to keep us in perfect peace if we focus on Him but we must be close enough to God to hear Him speak to us.  God does speak to us in whispers, and if we are not still, we could miss hearing God’s voice.

Trusting God is the answer because some problems that we experience will be beyond our control and to some, that alone is a problem.  We want to be in control of everything but that will not always be the case.  God loves us and He wants us to come to Him with everything that concerns us.  God has always been there for you; He has always taken care of you and He cannot stop being who He is.  God has a different perspective on our problems than we do, so it is to our advantage to take our burdens to the Lord and leave them there.  It all comes down to trusting God with not only our lives but the lives of everyone we love in this world.

Be anxious for nothing should be written down every where you go as a reminder that your problems are now God’s problems and in prayer, supplication and thanksgiving you are to take your problems to God and walk away with such peace because the one who created all, has you in the palm of His hand.

God has commanded us to have no other gods before Him because man cannot serve two masters.  Each of us must be mindful to make God number one in our lives. Any person, place or thing that we allow to usurp God, God will test us in that area.  Nothing we own really belongs to us; everything we have came from God, and we should never worship the creature more than the creator.

God will point at things in our life that are very important to us and test us to see if we love those things more than we love Him.  When God commanded Abraham to offer his son, Isaac as a sacrifice, God was really testing Abraham’s faith, but Abraham showed us that if we put everything that we hold near and dear on the altar, and acknowledge that they are gifts from God, God will show us mercy and provide everything we need.  Abraham had faith that God could raise Isaac from the dead if that were necessary, but because he did not hold back and obeyed God completely, God provided a ram to be offered as the sacrifice.  God always provides the right thing, in the right place and at the right time for His children.

God will make a way for you when there seems to be no way if you allow Him to be first in your life, but He wants you to obey Him before you can see His provision just as Abraham did – that is faith.  If you ever find yourself at Mt. Moriah, trust God as many saints before you have done.  It doesn’t matter what the test, put your faith into action and look for your ‘ram in the bush.’

What do you do when you feel like you are at the end of your rope?  The first thing a Christian should do is to turn to the Lord.  It is natural that we first turn to our family and friends for a solution; but at some point in your life you just might run into a problem that only God can resolve.  Instead of God being our last choice, He should be our first choice.  God’s love for us is so great that He knows the very number of the hairs on our head, and because He gave his only begotten Son to us, we have no reason to believe that He does not care about the challenging situations we face.

If we really believed that there is nothing too difficult for God, why do we leave God out of our daily lives? More importantly, God knows where you have been and where you are going.  God knows what is best for you and He alone knows what will hurt you or help you in the long run.  No one can counsel you or give you direction like your heavenly Father.  Life can be problematic and we can become anxious and worry because we don’t have the answers we need, but when you are at the end, God is just beginning.  You must first go to God in prayer and ask Him for His help, and if you seek Him with your whole heart, He promises that you will find Him.  What is also important is that you must be willing to do whatever God tells you to do regardless if you agree with Him or not because obedience is better than sacrifice.

Turn to God when you are at the end of your rope and watch Him get involved in your circumstances.  You will find that there is more rope available to you.  God will extend His hand to you so that your rope becomes longer and longer and you will not fall and you will not fail because if God is for you, who can be against you?  If you feel that you must be in the driver’s seat all of the time, you will miss God’s best for you.  Don’t be afraid to become a passenger.  Wouldn’t you rather be assured that you will reach your destination safely than take the risk of driving around without a map hoping that you will end up where you want to be?  Fasten your seatbelt and relax for God knows how to get you where you need to be and when you need to be there.

It has been said that life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to what happens to you.  The Bible tells us that in this life we will have trouble, and while we are on earth, we must expect that we will experience adversity from time to time.  No one is exempt from it.  Knowing that it will come is not enough; we must be prepared to handle it successfully so that we get the best results possible.

We need to look at adversity as an opportunity to do something different – something that just might propel you into your God-given destiny.  It would be easy to ignore the problem for as long as you can, but not dealing with the issue will not make it go away.  We must first acknowledge the problem and then decide to look our problems right in the face and deal with them.  We cannot give up.  Doing nothing is not an option.  We must have a mentality that we are going to seek God for the solution and then do what God tells us to do.  We must believe that God is with us right in the middle of our problem.  God has promised never to leave us nor forsake us, so if you have a problem, God is right there in the middle of it with you.  The Bible tells us that God is a present help in the time of trouble.  God will bless you while you are dealing with your problem.  God wants you to win.  He is on your side.  He will give you the resources to overcome if you choose to ask Him for guidance.  He will order your steps.  He will open doors that no one else could possibly open for you.  He loves you that much.

The worst that happens to you can be the best thing for you if you do not let it get the best of you.  Many people have discovered that what looked liked the end for them, actually turned out to be a blessing.  They saw God working everything out for their good.  Adversities draw us closer to God because we understand that we are limited but there is nothing impossible for God.  God can turn it around in a moment and give you a testimony that will encourage others to have faith in God.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your response to what happens.  Handle adversity in a way that honors your heavenly Father.  Remember, you can do all things through Christ who gives you the strength if you only believe.  Every time you fall down, get back up.  Never stop.  You may not have the answer but God does.  Successful people will tell you that their success came with a price; they had to keep going even when they thought they were laboring in vain.  Don’t become discouraged; others are watching you.  You will be the incentive they need when they see that your perseverance was the key to your victory.