Life Journeys

The price we pay for thinking we're OK is barrenness. The well-being that comes from trying to love ourselves is nothing like the inner peace that comes from experiencing the love of God. Beating yourself up is much harder to overcome than God's disillusionment with you. Faith is way easier!

Christianity is not an education about God. It's an encounter with Him that validates our lives, for He is life. You are more precious to God than the sum of millions of fans crying out your approval. When your money and friends are gone, your validation is still based upon the same word that put the stars in the sky.

Your pain need not be in vain. Human suffering and glory are not incompatible. The path to glory is through suffering. Hardship doesn’t mean you're “less than.” Too often we lose our sense of hope because of what we’re going through instead of finding our honor because of what Christ went through.

See what God sees in you instead of what you see in you. He sees the gold and works to remove the impurities in the Refiner’s Fire. If you dwell on what you’re not, that’s where you’ll stay. Stop trying to grow in God’s character by your own power. Learn to live a supernatural life of holiness and peace.

Hardship in this world is heaven's summons to believe. It is not a summons to try harder to better yourself or to give up. It is a call to seek God to build up your faith in the knowledge of His love. The impossible is the way through to your supernatural life purpose. Only relentless faith can navigate this pathway.

Never interpret the hardness of the way as a sign of failure. Favor from on high only fits into the container of the fear of the Lord, and is often forged in the furnace of hardship. Mary was highly favored, not because she was perfect, but by God’s choice. His grace determines our value. Our value doesn't determine His grace. Trust Him when you can't trust yourself!

All you have of eternal value has been freely given. Your life is not a mistake, no matter how hard it's been. Unrelenting pain is not greater than God’s unrelenting choice of you.  God’s love in you can change a thousand lives. His gracious choice of you says, “You are as beloved to Me as My Son Jesus is to Me.”

A heart at peace is a wonderful thing that lies near the core of a man's man.  It is the blessing of faith applied to the pursuit of holiness - the atmosphere of a whole man. It’s a place of self-control where no idol compels us to defeat. You don’t obey God to have peace but because you are at peace.

God will let life break us down eventually until we’re faced with an inadequacy that only He can fill. His intended holiness isn’t a limitation, but a life of extreme liberty, where we’re no longer controlled by the darkness or the desperation of inadequacy. It’s a completed life of wholeness, value and honor.

The devil likes to diminish our sense of identity, purpose, and value to entice us to build ourselves up instead of trusting in God! "What good are you?" is a demonic question not worthy of consideration! It’s not what you’ve made of yourself but what you’ve let God make of you that matters. Rest!!