healing - Thoughts About God

Our Trademark

Devotionals — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 07:06:57 +0000

“By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35

The ring was special! It signified she belonged to a group of professionals. As she wore it she was aware of all it represented and of who it said she was.

As a follower of Jesus, you wear a distinguishing mark as well. You wear His love. Is it visible?

When Jesus came to this earth, He brought a special kind of love. This love is unselfish, compassionate, and unconditional. He loves us just as we are. Our condition is irrelevant to His love. It is a love that picks us up just where we are in life and carries us further than we could ever go on our own.

Jesus gives us His love so we can give it away in the same unselfish, compassionate, unconditional way He gave it to us. He tells us this kind of love will be our trade mark. It will distinguish us as followers of Jesus.

Even in the Church, the Family of God, or as it’s sometimes called, the Body of Christ, we can feel left out of this kind of love. We are often hurt, wounded and worn. This distinguishing mark as His followers sometimes seems missing. Hurting people hurt people. When we are living with hurt we in turn limit this love in our own outpouring.

As we invite Jesus to pour His love into our own wounded souls, we in turn are able to give His love away to others with a generous heart.

Father God, Thank you for Your generous love to me. Thank you that You see the abundance in me rather than all the shortfalls I have. You fill me up. Help me to offer that same gracious love to those I mingle with today. Pour Your love into my heart so I can give it away. May my distinguishing mark be Your love. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

Thought: If you carry wounds within your soul that keep love at bay in your life, talk to a mentor who will pray with you. Jesus can bring healing, hope and a fresh display of His love through you.

By Gail Rodgers
Used by Permission

FURTHER READING

The God Who Feeds My Soul

Tri Fold Love

The Gift of Love

The post Our Trademark appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Anger Management

Devotionals — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 07:06:27 +0000

“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Ephesians 4:26-27

A friend was going through a difficult circumstance and I was always very careful about how I approached the sensitive subject with her. She still had a lot of anger and I was giving her space and room to work through it.

After many months had gone by I asked her if she was experiencing God’s nearness, His presence, His comfort helping her through the process of coping with what had happened.

She quickly said, “No, not at all.”

I was silent. I was silent because I was surprised.

That didn’t sound like how God is.

He is our God of comfort.
He is near.
He is with us.
He understands what we are going through.
He is our helper.

I realize there are extreme circumstances when anger is where we live for a while and we can hardly even deal with God at that point. But this was not that kind of circumstance.

In her answer I still heard the anger. The kind of anger that is unhealthy. My friend already knew that and so I didn’t spend much time trying to remind her. I knew I risked offending her at this point and backed off and decided to approach her about it again at a later date.

Prolonged anger is completely different than initially experiencing anger and then finding a healthy way to deal with it. When we are hurt and angry we are extremely vulnerable to veering off in a direction that takes us away from God and not closer to Him for the help we so desperately need.

Anger is certain to hinder the nearness of God and the healing work He desires to do.

When we lay our hurt and anger at His feet and let it go, then something amazing happens. He moves us out of the place of anger and into a place of healing. The weight that anger was pressing on us is lifted and we will experience the nearness of God again. He never moved. Anger moves us away from Him.

The only way to manage anger is to let it go.

By Kathy Cheek
Used by Permission

The Thorn

Devotionals — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 07:06:05 +0000

I walk slowly when I pass this tree on the dirt path at the edge of the woods when walking by the creek near my home. Some of the branches overhanging the path are just a little too close for comfort and so I proceed with caution. Because I remember what it feels like to have a thorn painfully piercing the flesh of my arm when I was a little girl.

I don’t remember the specific details of an ordinary afternoon playing in some woods with neighborhood friends, but I do remember it happened when I was six years old and a sharp thorn ended up lodged in my arm, close to my elbow, and I remember my mom and dad coming at me with tweezers to pull it out. I have not forgotten how much I dreaded that pain and clearly indicated it with fierce screaming, on top of the crying I was already doing because a thorn was stuck in my arm.

They had to firmly hold me down, forcing me to be still because I didn’t make it easy for them to remove the painful object. But once it was out and the wound had been cleaned and medicated, the pain eased, and I was up and playing again in no time. The thorn was gone.

Holding onto pain is like living with a thorn lodged in your heart that needs to be removed. Sometimes that means intentionally choosing to let it go even when that seems the most difficult thing to do, and yet you know for your own well-being it has to be done.

It isn’t healthy to keep a thorn in your arm, and it isn’t healthy to hold a hurt in your heart. God wants you to heal. This is His desire for you. He doesn’t want you to go through life handicapped by a neglected wound He wants to heal.

The place where you let it go—is the place He comes in and heals you, and the deep wound becomes a place of healing. God replaces the past and present pain with present and future wholeness…and hope.

He can do that for you because God has healing in His hands.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” ~Psalm 147:3

By Kathy Cheek
Used by Permission

Are you hanging onto pain? Do you have Jesus in your life so he can bind it up and heal it? Would you like to have a relationship with Him? If you do, you can start today by committing and submitting your life to him. It starts with a simple heart felt prayer:

Lord, thank You for dying so we can be set free from all of guilt and sin — no matter how big or small. Your blood has erased all of our sin. Thank You so much! Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be. Amen

The post The Thorn appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Do You Talk to Yourself?

Devotionals — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 07:03:48 +0000

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion; who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.” Psalm 103:1-5 (NASB)

Do you ever talk to yourself? Do you ever experience a conflict between your head and your heart? You know what is right, correct, and the best plan, but your emotions want to pull you down a different path.

In today’s passage, David appears to be talking to himself: “Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name…” I think David was attempting to align his heart with his head.

David faced many challenges throughout his life. Some were the result of his unwise choices, while others were simply the result of being in a position of leadership as king. Plus there were difficulties resulting from people with evil intentions. His deep and personal thoughts captured in the Psalms are filled with vivid emotional responses to such circumstances.

In this psalm, David challenges himself to recall and praise God for forgiveness, healing, salvation, love and compassion, provision, and renewal. David trusts in God’s power to re-energize his life when his emotions were beginning to lead him in the wrong direction.

David’s spiritual roots went deep into the soil of God’s character and his experience of God’s faithfulness. Therefore, he consistently brought his feelings into line with the truth of God’s unchanging place in his life. What a place of stability! While feelings change frequently, God does not!

You may need to have a conversation with yourself about the disconnect between your emotions and what you know to be truth based on God’s perspective. Emotions are not bad in and of themselves; it’s how you manage them that determines outcomes.

God thank You that Your presence, love, and compassion surrounds me today. I know You are with me even when I doubt or am unhappy with what life seems to be bringing my way. I will trust You. Amen

By Mike Woodard
used by permission

So Many Hurts

Thoughts_About_God — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 08:01:51 +0000

If hurts were hairs—we’d all look like grizzlies!

So many hurts. When teachers ignore your work, their neglect hurts. When your girlfriend drops you, when your husband abandons you, when the company fires you, it hurts. Rejection always does. People bring pain.

Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes randomly.

So where do you turn? Hitman.com? Jim Beam and friends? Pity Party Catering Service? Retaliation has its appeal. But Jesus has a better idea!

Grace is not blind. It sees the hurt full well. But Grace chooses to see God’s forgiveness even more. Hebrews 12:15 asks us to, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

Where grace is lacking, bitterness abounds. Where grace abounds, forgiveness grows. Forgiveness may not happen all at once. But it can happen with you.

by Max Lucado
Used by permission
From: GRACE

To learn more about Max Lucado visit his website at: https://maxlucado.com/about/

Healing Words from a Dialogue with God

Devotionals — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 08:02:06 +0000

“… Because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” Luke 1:78-79

God’s Word promises,

“Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

You are sure it’s past due to be morning already. It’s hard to let Him be in charge of the whys, how’s, and when’s. You only know what you think you want.

You: “I’m numb. Where am I? Where did I go?”

God: “I long for you to be quiet, refresh yourself in Me. Quiet your soul in Me and let your spirit hear and receive from Me the healing that you need. Then you can become the beautiful new treasure that I have in mind.”

You: (not getting the message) “Where are You? I feel disconnected and shut down. In my devotional time, I can’t connect with You like I want to (or used to). Why?”

God: “I am near. In fact, I am here with you now. I am in you. Just rest in Me. Whisper My name. Sit with Me and let Me love you. It is enough.”

You: (Not yet acknowledging the compulsive nature of your former works, even those “in Jesus’ name”) “When will You let me feel reconnected with life?”

God: “I want you connected to Me, not life as you know it, not a ministry, not a group. Connect with Me in that deep-calls-to-deep place. Let Me gently confront any arrogance or demanding tone. It’s O.K. to want more, not O.K. to demand it.” Or His answer may be silence. He may not say a word, because He is doing a new thing, so honor His right to choose if you reconnect with life as you knew it, and how and when you can feel again.

You: “Soften my heart. Let me glimpse new levels of true communion with You.”

God: “I long for you more than you long for Me. Trust Me.”

Isaiah spoke of mounting up with wings as an eagle. When an eagle feels toxic, it sits high on a rock above all his enemies and lets the sun do its work. When the eagle is molting and in a weakened condition, it lets God’s sun renew it while it gets new feathers to soar higher. It also goes to the high rock when it has eaten something contaminated. The psalmist talked about the rock that is higher than his enemies. When your human spirit is drained of God’s rest, take time out and let God’s tender mercy shine into your soul. Get outside and sit in the sun, feel the breeze, and maybe look at some water, a lake, stream, clouds, or even a fountain.

John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.” Will you find your well of satisfaction, your fountain of life, in Him? The hymn “Moment By Moment” is an affirmation that Jesus never leaves or forsakes you. Here is the chorus:

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;
Moment by moment I’ve life from above;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.
Daniel W. Whittle, 1893

Commit to him, “Moment by moment, Lord, I am Yours.”

By Sylvia Gunter
used by permission

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