He Hears And He Cares Deuteronomy 33:12 2 Chronicles 7:13-15 1 Chronicles 5:20 Psalms 94:17-19 Psalms 55:22 Nahum 1:7 Luke 11:9-10 1 Peter 5:7 Philippians 4:6-7 1 John 5:14-15 Revelation 8:3-4 02.27.19

HE HEARS AND HE CARES

BREAD

¹² “Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.” Deuteronomy 33:12 (NIV)

¹³ “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, ¹⁴ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. ¹⁵ Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.”  2 Chronicles 7:13-15 (NIV)

²⁰ They were helped in fighting them, and God handed the Hagrites and all their allies over to them, because they cried out to him during the battle. He answered their prayers, because they trusted in him.  1 Chronicles 5:20 (NIV)

¹⁷ Unless the LORD had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. ¹⁸ When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your love, O LORD, supported me. ¹⁹ When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.   Psalm 94:17-19 (NIV)

²² Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. Psalm 55:22 (NIV)

⁷ The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him. Nahum 1:7 (NIV)

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”   Luke 11:9-10 (NIV)

⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.  1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

¹⁴ This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him.  1 John 5:14-15 (NIV)

³ Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.
⁴ The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.   Revelation 8:3-4 (NIV)

BUTTER

“It is natural for us to wish and to plan, and it is merciful of the Lord to disappoint our plans and to cross our wishes.  For we cannot be safe or happy until we are weaned from our own wills and made simply desirous of being directed by His guidance.  Although we understand this we seldom learn to put it into practice without being trained for a while in the school of disappointment.  The schemes we form look so plausible and convenient that when they are broken we are ready to say, ‘What a pity!’  We try again, and with no better success; we are grieved, and perhaps angry, and plan another, and so on; eventually, in the course of time, experience and observation begin to convince us that we are no more able than we are worthy to choose correctly for ourselves.  The Lord’s invitation to cast our cares upon Him, and His promise to take care of us, appear valuable; and when we have done planning, His plan in our favor gradually opens, and He does more and better for us than we could either ask or think.  I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, which if it had taken place in the time and the way I wanted would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or at least would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me.  We judge things by their present appearance; but the Lord sees them in their consequences.  If we could do the same we would be perfectly of His mind; but since we can’t, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is regarded as one of His heaviest judgments when He gives any person up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk according to their own wisdom.”  John Newton

“The fact of Jesus’ coming is the final and unanswerable proof that God cares.”  William Barclay

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.  Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.  Commend all to God, and then lie still and be at rest in His bosom.  Whatever happens, abide steadfast in a determination to cling simply to God……Maintain a holy simplicity of mind, and do not smother yourself with a host of cares, wishes, or longings, under any pretext.”     St. Francis de Sales 

“Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.”  John R W. Stott

“Abandon the worries....and Abide in the Word.  Abandon the fears...and Abide in the Father.  Abandon the hurts...and Abide in His heart.  Abandon the cares...because Christ will never abandon you.  It's what I self-preach again and again to the fearful sinner who is me: Abandon and Abide.”    Ann Voskamp

“He was the most balanced and perhaps the most beloved being ever to enter the society of men.  Though born amid most disgusting surroundings, the member of a modest working family, He bore Himself always with great dignity and assurance.  Though He enjoyed no special advantages as a child, either in education or employment, His entire philosophy and outlook on life were the highest standards of human conduct ever set before mankind.  Though He had no vast economic assets, political power or military might, no other person ever made such an enormous impact on the world’s history.  Because of Him……..people have come into a life of decency and honor and noble conduct………He came to set men free from their own sins, their own selves, their own fears.  Those so liberated loved Him with fierce loyalty.  It is this One who insists that He was the Good Shepherd, the understanding Shepherd, the concerned Shepherd who cares enough to seek out and save and restore lost men and women.”   Phillip Keller

“What we feed our minds and hearts on will determine whether we live a life of faith or a life of fear. …The more time we spend with God and His Word, the more our faith develops and our fear diminishes….Faith in God conquers fear every time. The God who has redeemed us and cares for us is trustworthy. Our Creator God will never abandon us, and He has our best interests at heart. ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging’(Psalm 46:1-3).”   Michael Youssef

“Inauspiciously, a prayer meeting in Antioch in Acts 13:1-3 became one of the most important moments in the history of the world. With their prayers and fasting, the church leaders said, God, we want your provision, not our small plans. We want your abundance, not our small-mindedness. We want more than we know how to ask, more than we can think, more than we could expect, more than we can dream. We want you, God. We’re not satisfied with abilities and experience and what we can plan on our own and do apart from you. We want you and your leading. We don’t want to lean on our own understanding.”  David Mathis

“All we love is in his hands. He hears our prayers and our tears when there are no words. He counts them as liquid intercession, which is precious to him (Ps. 56:8a). He is our Mighty Warrior and contends with those forces that are contending with us (Isa. 42:13; Ps. 35:1). Sylvia Gunter

“Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused.”    Charles H. Spurgeon

“If you love someone, will you want to make him miserable?  Will you go out of your way to punish him if he doesn’t do exactly what you tell him to?  No, of course not – not if you really love him.  The same is true with God.  God loves you, and because He loves you, He cares what happens to you.  He loves you too much to let you wander aimlessly through life, without meaning or purpose.  The Bible says, ‘You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy’ (Psalms 16:11).  Covet God’s will for your life more than anything else.  To know God’s will – and to do it – is life’s greatest joy.”   Billy Graham

“My life is but a weaving between my God and me.  I cannot choose the colors He weaveth steadily.  Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow; and I in foolish pride forget He sees the upper and I the underside.  Not ‘til the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly will God unroll the canvas and reveal the reason why.  The dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skillful hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.  He knows, He loves, He cares; Nothing this truth can dim.  He gives the very best to those who leave the choice to Him.”    Corrie ten Boom

“Wait upon Me.  Let your life be as a deep, quiet pool.  Let your heart rest in My hand as a bird in a nest.  Let your eyes be still.  Let your hands be free.  For then I shall fill all your vision, and then I shall take your hands into Mine and My power shall flow forth into you….Only be still before Me.  Never let the toils and cares of the day rob you of this sweet fellowship with Me….I am actively engaged in working for you in ways you cannot see, to make your path clear, and to bring about things you could never accomplish, and which would otherwise absorb your energies and wear out your patience….O Lord, what shame that You should need to beg us thus!  Better that others might find us unavailable because of our occupation with You, rather than for us to be so slow to come, so dull to hear, so cold of heart, so indolent of soul….Grant this one prayer more, O Lord, that You would give us all that is lacking in us; intensify our hunger and fire our devotion; take the indifference from our spirits; and have within us Your wonderful way and perfect will, O God, we pray.  Amen.”   Frances J. Roberts

“Keep bringing your prayers to God. If you think your request is legitimate, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. God wants to teach us through persistent praying to wait on Him and to watch. While we're praying and waiting for God to answer our prayers, do you know what He's doing? He's working on us, conforming us more and more to the image of Christ. And when we're ready, the answer will surely come.”   David Jeremiah

“Walk on the path of integrity with confidence, and show that you are invincibly strong in the strength that confidence in God alone confers. In this way you will be delivered from anxious care; you will be untroubled by evil tidings, and your heart will be fixed, trusting in the Lord. How pleasant to float along on the stream of providence! There is no more blessed way of living than a life of dependence upon a covenant-keeping God. We do not need to worry because He cares for us; we do not need to carry burdens because He invites us to cast them upon Him.”  Charles H. Spurgeon

HEART SAVOR

·         God both hears our prayers and cares.

·         What He allows in our lives is used to conform us into the image of His precious Son – and that my dear friends is the most excellent way for our life.

·         Cease anxiety and “pray without ceasing”.

Unjust Suffering 1 Peter 2:19-21 1 Peter 4:3-5 1 Peter 4:12-18 1 Peter 2:11-12 Proverbs 19:11 Proverbs 12:16 Proverbs 10:12 Romans 12:17-21 02.25.19

UNJUST SUFFERING

BREAD

¹⁹ For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. ²⁰ But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. ²¹ To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.  1 Peter 2:19-21 (NIV)

³ For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. ⁴ They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. ⁵ But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 1 Peter 4:3-5 (NIV)

¹² Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³ But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. ¹⁴ If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. ¹⁵ If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. ¹⁶ However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. ¹⁷ For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? ¹⁸ And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”  1 Peter 4:12-18 (NIV)

¹¹ Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. ¹² Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.  1 Peter 2:11-12 (NIV)

¹¹ A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.  Proverbs 19:11 (NIV)

¹⁶ A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.  Proverbs 12:16 (NIV)

¹² Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. Proverbs 10:12 (NIV)

¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.   Romans 12:17-21 (NIV)

BUTTER

“When we are unjustly wounded by men, let us overlook their wickedness (which would but worsen our pain and sharpen our minds to revenge), remember to mount up to God, and learn to believe for certain that whatever our enemy has wickedly committed against us was permitted and sent by God’s just dispensation.”  Calvin

“Whether the offenses against us are titanic or trifling, God’s judgment frees us to exchange bitterness for patience, retribution for mercy. The very word judgment brings to mind our own offenses against God, offenses that cried out for our blood until Jesus shed his own. It reminds us that our offender, if outside of Christ, deserves our pity and, if inside Christ, needs our brotherly love. It removes all self-righteousness from our mouths and replaces it with the Christlike plea of ‘Lord, forgive them.’ It beckons us to release our ‘right’ to get even, and to hand over our cause to him who judges justly.”  Scott Hubbard

“Assurance grows by repeated conflict…When we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again…and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God.”   John Newton

“Every step on the pathway of spiritual progress will be marked by the bloody footprints of wounded self-love.  All along the course of spiritual advancement, one will have to set up altars upon which even the legitimate self-life will have to be sacrificed.”   Alexander Maclaren     

“Leave it all in the hands that were wounded for you.”  Elisabeth Elliot

“I don’t know how, but somehow? –maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest wisdom. We are made in the image of God. And wasn’t God’s heart made to be broken too? Wounds can be openings to the beauty in us. And our weaknesses can be a container for God’s glory.  Hannah tasted salty tears of infertility. Elijah howled for God to take his life. David asked his soul a thousand times why it was so downcast.  The thing is? God does great things through the greatly wounded. God sees the broken as the best and He sees the best in the broken and He calls the wounded to be the world changers.  Never ever be afraid of being a broken thing. And maybe—this is the way to freedom? You’ve got to remember to just keep breathing —keep believing. Brokenness can make.”   Ann Voskamp

“To be human is to be a fallen image bearer who can only be rescued by a Wounded Healer.”  Ronnie Collier Stevens

“Tribulation is necessary for the decentralization of self and the development of deep dimensions of agape love, this love can be developed only in the school of suffering.  It grows and develops only by exercise and testing.  This may explain the relationship between sainthood and suffering by showing why there is no sainthood without suffering.  It may also show why the greatest saints are often the greatest suffers.”   Paul E. Billheimer

“When suffering floods us — the question that often rises is WHY?  Why would a loving God allow this crisis, this grief, this heartbreak, this suffering?  Why does suffering happen in a world held by a Wounded God?  And when suffering surrounds, the Wounded God with the nail scars, He does not ask us to deny it, or turn a blind eye to it, or beautify it. He ask us to hold space for it, to collect it, to gather it, like the questioning mystery of manna, and cup it in hand and believe that something in the suffering offers sustenance for the soul. In every hard thing that happens — God is happening to work a million things for good.  The Wounded God does not say, ‘Do not fear, I will give you all the answers.’  He does not say, ‘Do not fear, I will take away all your pain.’  He does not say, ‘Do not fear, I will do whatever you all think.’  The Wounded God who is the one High, Almighty Wise God, who says it like a wide-open embrace:  ‘Do not fear — for I am here.’  What if instead of wanting good things for us — we wanted a good God with us?  The problem of evil is answered by the presence of Emmanuel: God is with us.  There are always arms under you carrying you, there are always hands carved with your name holding yours, there is always a waiting embrace Who is your safe place. You will never be abandoned — because He will never abandon you, Love will never abandon you, Hope will never abandon you, Grace will never abandon you.  With-ness breaks brokenness and He who is with you is larger than any suffering around you.” Ann Voskamp

“Steel is iron plus fire.  Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing.  Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves.  Human character must have a plus attached to it.  The world does not forget great character.  But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering….Someday, God is going to reveal the fact to every Christian, that the very principles they now rebel against, have been the instruments which He used in perfecting their characters and molding them into perfection, polished stones for His great building yonder.”   Cortland Myers  

“Suffering is the crucible the Divine Blacksmith uses to form us into the image of Christ.  Apart from God’s grace suffering is deformative.  For the believer, our suffering is accomplishing something.  Suffering well takes practice.  We must learn to pray our pain, sing our sorrows and lean into the comfort of community.  God uses our suffering for the greater good of others.  We suffer to share the One that suffered to save.”  Jonathan Darville 

“Did you ever stop and think about the fact that God has put you where you are for such a time as this? It is providence. If you have suffered in life, God can take your hurt and pain and use it to make you a godly man or woman for such a time as this….There is only one you. There is one person walking this earth with your exact heritage. The precise events and sufferings of your life have brought you to this hour. God is aware of it. He has been preparing, equipping, and allowing what has been happening in your life to get you ready. He has something for you to say. He has something for you to do.”   Greg Laurie

“Seriously, who wants to be known as ‘Shallow Hal’?  Yet sadly, many who claim faith in Christ fall into the mile wide and an inch-deep category.  This is not of God’s choosing.  He desires for us to grow up in Christ – to be conformed to the image of his Son – and He often uses our tribulations to bring this about.  That is His chosen instrument.  Sometimes this is excruciatingly painful – more often than not.  Remember as well, in this fallen and broken world, pain comes to all.  There are no exceptions.  But as believers our pain has purpose.  Pain is also relative as you most likely know.  A coffee stain on a white skirt can be as devastating to some as a bad diagnosis – go figure…If tribulation, then, is inevitable should we not prayerfully seek the purpose for it and grow up, look up, or grow nearer, if you will, in Christ?  As believers, we are never more like our Savior as when we walk the path of suffering and sacrifice.  And whether we are discerners of this or not the more like Christ we are the more satisfied we will be.  Remember, too, God’s grace is always sufficient to meet every need.  Every. Need.”  BHY

“What if suffering didn’t leave us questioning God — but left us seeing that God is always the answer?”   Ann Voskamp

HEART SAVOR

·         Unjust suffering will come. The question is what will you do with it?

·         The Wounded Healer uses our pain to conform us into His image – and there is no better image nor is this a small act of love on His part.  He knows what is best for us even though it is painful.  Just look at the cross if you want to see the ultimate highest form of unjust suffering, just take a long look at the cross.

·         Whining and complaining are not spiritual fruits nor are they attractive for the child of the King.

Weary From Worry? Philippians 4:6-7 Psalms 23:4 Psalms 46:1-3 Philippians 4:19-20 Matthew 6:25-34 Isaiah 26:3 Matthew 11:28-30 Philippians 4:12-13 Psalms 42:5-6 02.22.19

WEARY FROM WORRY?

BREAD

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  Psalm 23:4 (NIV)

¹ God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. ² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, ³ though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Selah  Psalm 46:1-3 (NIV)

¹⁹ And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
²⁰ To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.  Philippians 4:19-20 (NIV)

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)

³ You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3 (NIV)

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:12-13 (NIV)

⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and ⁶ my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon--from Mount Mizar. Psalm 42:5-6 (NIV)

BUTTER

“God has as a strong reserve with which to discharge this engagement; for He is able to do all things.  Believer, until you can drain the ocean dry of omnipotence and break the towering mountains of almighty strength into pieces, you never need to be afraid.  Don’t think that the strength of a human being shall ever be able to overcome the power of God.  As long as the earth’s huge pillars stand, you have enough reason to remain firm in your faith.  The same God who directs the earth in its orbit, feeds the burning furnace of the sun, and trims the lamps of heaven, has promised to supply you with daily strength.  While He is able to uphold the universe, don’t even dream that He will prove unable to fulfill His own promises.  Remember what He did in ages past, in the former generations.  Remember how He spoke, and it was done; how He commanded, and it stood fast.  Shall He that created the world grow weary?  He hangs the world upon nothing; shall He who does this be unable to support His children?  Shall He be unfaithful to His word for want of power?  Who is it that restrains the tempest?   Doesn’t He ride upon the wings of the wind, and make the clouds His chariots, and hold the ocean in the hollow of His hand?  How can He fail you?  When He has put such a faithful promise as this on record, will you for a moment indulge the thought that He has out promised Himself, and gone beyond his power to fulfill?  Ah, no!  You cannot doubt any longer.”    Charles H. Spurgeon ispower to fulfill?  Ah, no!  ou cannot doubt any longer.”   Charlesd H. Spurgeon

“Regret looks back.  Worry looks around.  Faith looks up.”   John Mason

“Courage for the Christian is simply doing the next right thing through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results in God’s loving hands.  He is always faithful to give the grace sufficient to meet each need as we need it.  Courage is faith in action – not faith in ourselves but faith in Him.”   BHY

“This God is no stranger to the hard road. This God walked the hardest road for us. And whatever road we’re walking one now—then somehow, someway—that road is good. There’s not just breadcrumbs of good for you on it; the road itself is good… In this hard, He is doing something holy. He is doing something transformative. Even as our hearts rage. Even as they break….This upside-down road, where His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9), where troubles are an opportunity for great joy (James 1:2) because troubles usher us into His presence, and in His presence, there is fullness of joy. (Psalms 16:11).  This is Who.  A God who does not forsake. A God who is not cruel. A God who is not stingy with grace.  Not a sparrow falls outside of His care.  When we find ourselves walking through a dry and weary land where there is no water, shaking our fists at why…Fix the eyes on this God.  Remember and rest in Who.  Maybe comfort isn’t found so much when we ask, ‘Why is this all unfolding here and now?’ — Maybe comfort is found more when we rest in Who is enfolding us all here and now.”  Katie Ganshert 

“Worry is a form of atheism, for it betrays a lack of faith and trust in God.”  Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

“God promises victory to those who endure, so He gives us enough strength – usually just enough so faith is still required – to keep us going.  He wants us to succeed and not give up.  In the walk of faith, we can’t afford to doubt, worry, fear, or complain – the very symptoms that kept a generation of Israelites out of their Promised Land.  All of these attitudes severely undermine God’s work on our behalf, not because He can’t do whatever He wants but because He has chosen to relate to us on the basis of our faith.  Negative attitudes and words undermine faith.  They devalue the very currency we have to use in God’s Kingdom.  Wherever God’s voice and your faith are leading you, do not be afraid or dismayed.”   Chris Tiegreen

“Worry is the great robber of peace and joy.  What has it ever done for us except to make us miserable and steal away our valuable time?  Can we really afford to give in to its far-reaching destruction?  If we are a child of the King, if it is true that God is our loving Father and that all of His promises are for us and “yes” in Jesus, then what do we have to worry about?”  BHY

“We all know the value of joy.  It alone is the proof that what we have really satisfies the heart.  Just this makes gladness such a mighty element in the Christian character:  there is no proof of the reality of God’s love and the blessing He bestows, which men so soon feel the force of, as when the joy of God overcomes all the trials of life.  And for the Christian’s own welfare, joy is no less indispensable:  the joy of the Lord is his strength; confidence, and courage, and patience finds their inspiration in joy.  With a heart full of joy no work can weary, and no burden can depress; God Himself is strength and song.”   Andrew Murray 

“The grace that’s in this moment is your manna.  Wish for the past and you drink poison.  Worry about the future and you eat fire.  Stay in this moment and you eat the manna needed for now.”   Ann Voskamp  

“God employs His people to encourage one another.  We should delight that God usually works for human beings with other human beings.  It forms a bond of friendship, and being mutually dependent on one another, we are fused more completely into one family.  Work to help others, and especially strive to encourage them.  Talk cheerily to the young and anxious inquirer, lovingly try to remove obstacles out of his way.  When you find a spark of grace in the heart, kneel down and blow it into a flame.  Leave the young believer to discover the roughness of the road by degrees, but tell him of the strength which dwells in God, of the sureness of the promise, and of the charms of communion with Christ.  Aim to comfort the sorrowful, and to animate the hopeless.  Speak a word in season to him who is weary, and encourage those who are fearful to go on their way with gladness.  God encourages you by His promises; Christ encourages you as He points to the heaven He has won for you, and the Spirit encourages you as He works in you to will and to do of His own will and pleasure.  Imitate divine wisdom, and encourage others according to the Word.”   Charles H. Spurgeon 

“We can wait in eager expectation rather than wringing our hands in worry as God has promised to cause all things to work together for our good and we can trust Him in any and every circumstance.  He is ever faithful to His promises and loving towards all He has made.  He loves us with an everlasting love and His eye is ever on us.  He was faithful in the past, He is faithful today and He will be faithful tomorrow.  What a gracious and loving God we serve.”  

 BHY

“I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sands in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath—these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely—these are my native air.”   E. Stanley Jones

“Walk on the path of integrity with confidence, and show that you are invincibly strong in the strength that confidence in God alone confers. In this way you will be delivered from anxious care; you will be untroubled by evil tidings, and your heart will be fixed, trusting in the Lord. How pleasant to float along on the stream of providence! There is no more blessed way of living than a life of dependence upon a covenant-keeping God. We do not need to worry because He cares for us; we do not need to carry burdens because He invites us to cast them upon Him.”  Charles H. Spurgeon

HEART SAVOR

·         Worry is a great robber of the life that is truly life.

·         Worry never gives rather always takes.

·         “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your on understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”  Proverbs 3:5-6.