“When we would have any great things to be accomplished, the best policy is to work by an engine which the world sees nothing of.” – John Preston

When we can’t reach something, where do we usually turn?

To someone who’s taller. Or closer.

To someone whose arm is not too short.

Prayer is asking God to reach for something outside our grasp.

To move where we can’t.

To touch where we are incapable.

To act where all we can do is watch.

Prayer is coming to the One whose arm is never too short.

The God we approach in prayer is a God sitting on a throne—high and lifted up (Isaiah 6:1). Yet our Father who sees in secret and hears in secret and is present with us in secret (Matthew 6).

Prayer is seeking the hand of a God who can move in men’s hearts. Heal the bruised. Touch where we can’t. And protect where we would only crumble.

•         We pray to a God who is mighty in our midst (Zephaniah 3:17).
•         To a God who shows Himself strong on our behalf (2 Chronicles 16:9).
•         To the One who is our only hope and our only trust (Psalm 71:5).

We pray to a God who has a mighty, outstretched arm.

It is nothing for our God to work, to reach, to move (2 Chronicles 14:11)

It is nothing for Him to answer our prayers.

His arm is never too short, and His hand can reach even the tiniest trouble.

Pray. And watch God reach His mighty hand long and strong where we never could.

“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save;
Nor his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.” Isaiah 59:1

By Bethany Hayes
Used by Permission

Learn more about knowing Jesus at: http://thoughtsaboutgod.com/four-laws/

The post How to Convince Your Heart that His Arm is Not Too Short can be found at Thoughts about God.

“When Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his coat on and threw himself into the sea” John 21:7

Impetuous, wonderful, daring, loving, repentant Simon Peter is determined not to miss this meeting with his risen Lord. He quickly dons his coat and plunges into the water. The distance to the shore with its charcoal fire and forgiving Lord are but a few oar strokes away for his muscled arms. It would have made more sense to stay with the ship; they all would have reached shore eventually. He certainly gained no dignity by his impetuous act. But Peter acts on the small vision he possesses, meets his Master and hears a message meant especially for his aching heart.

Lord, help me act on my Spirit-guided whims instead of staying safely in the boat.  Help me know when you call from the shore, then give me courage to plunge in and swim toward you in spite of the derisive comments of onlookers. Only then will I feel the warmth of your fire and clearly hear your voice.

by Marilyn Ehle
used by permission

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“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. Matthew 6:34 (MSG)

Whatever it is you have been attempting to conquer, take it step by step, moment by moment. We only live one day at a time. Right now, your greatest accomplishment will be getting through what today holds.  Make it a point to always be prepared. Rise to the challenges. Give it your all! You have what it takes to get it done; trust your ability.

Lord thank you for the grace to live in the here and now. Too often we approach life trying to get to the next big thing rather than enjoying each day you have given. Thank you for teaching us to make every moment count. Thank you for the courage to face and arise above every obstacle that may come our way today. We trust in your unfailing love today. In Jesus name Amen.

Grace and Peace,

By Mary Pinckney
Used by Permission

Learn more about knowing Jesus at: http://thoughtsaboutgod.com/four-laws/

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The post Only Today Matters can be found at Thoughts about God.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is, and was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8

Read that verse again, and this time let it soak deeply into your soul. Doesn’t it bring you comfort?

Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last. God is saying He is the beginning and the end—of your day, every day and also of your life. I have heard it said that we should sandwich our day in prayer. This means we invite Christ into our lives the moment our eyes pop awake, and then ask Him to bless and keep us as we close them. Another saying often depicted on plaques and in cross-stitch patterns states, “A life knotted in prayer at both ends won’t unravel.” Begin and end your day with God.

There are days I try to jump start on my own without inviting my Lord into them. There are nights I cast my worries upon my pillow instead of onto Him. But the days I start and end with acknowledging God in my life seem to go better. Not that bad things don’t happen on those days, but their impact on me is not as devastating. I find that once I invite my Lord into my day, I am more aware of Him being with me throughout it. He was there a heartbeat ago, He is here now, and He will be there a few breaths from now. Alpha and Omega—the beginning and the end, and every time in between.

My Lord, spur in me the desire and discipline to make You my first and my last thought each day. I know when I let you into my life I become more aware of Your presence, Your love and Your guidance. Teach me to praise when I arise and thank You when I retire for the night. And in between, remind me I can rely on You to be there, always. Amen.

Thought: For the next week, consciously make an effort to pray as soon as you wake up and then again right before you go to sleep. See if your attitude becomes more joyful and positive

By Julie Cosgrove
used by permission

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The post The Beginning and the End can be found at Thoughts about God.

Hear God’s Word for you in Psalm 31:15.

“My times are in your hands.”

In Daniel 7:25.

“He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws.”

In Revelation 1:8.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Let God bring your spirit, soul, and body into alignment with his divine time. Choose to stay in the present tense of God’s time. Be blessed as you understand the wiles of the enemy to change God’s times (Daniel 7:25). Ask God to deal with all warping of your time. Be blessed in every part of your spirit to be in harmony with God’s time. Ask him about time, timeliness, and bringing time into alignment, so that you stand in his victories and the breakthroughs already won.

Be blessed with lining up with your birthright and with God’s divine time, so that no portion of your being or spiritual identity or inheritance is out of kilter. God who is out of time can keep your spirit, soul, and body in right relationship to the flow of his days for you. Anticipate his timing on your coming and going. Be blessed to see his fingerprints upon everything that concerns you. If it concerns you, it concerns him. Look for and receive his nurture, and grow and increase and be strong in all that your Father has for you to receive. You have worked hard over time to overcome brokenness. Trust God to propel you forward, because he is nurturing your whole being. Fragmentation is a thing of the past as God brings all of you to full stature, as Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Be blessed with being whole in every part: spirit, soul, and body.

Be blessed to know the fullest dimensions of what God has placed inside you. Be blessed in the perfect harmony of all his gifts, all singing the same tune in the same key of music. One may sing the lead at times, and then another, but none will overpower the beauty of all the gifts together in divine symphony. Be blessed with knowing your identity in Christ for such a time as this. Understand what your Father designed you to do and how he wants to implement your gifts to accomplish that work with authenticity. He is mentoring and coaching you in the completeness of Christ’s likeness. Be blessed with receiving that spiritual deposit now. You have a powerful destiny and purpose. He is guiding and equipping you to demonstrate his magnificence.

Recognize that God’s hand is on every circumstance of your life, as he gives you opportunity to learn and to express all of himself in you. Be blessed as you accept the giftedness he has placed in you, and know that you are a gift from him to all the people in your circle of influence. Be blessed today in God’s redeemed time. He made everything beautiful in his time.

Be blessed in the name of the Alpha and Omega,
with whom time has no beginning or end (Revelations 1:8).

by Sylvia Gunter
used by permission

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• One Step at a Time
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The post Alignment of Your Times can be found at Thoughts about God.

In the game of life there are two courts. God’s court and Satan’s court. God wants us in his court playing by his rules. Unfortunately there are many who are in Satan’s court trying to play by God’s rules and more unfortunately there are those in God’s court who want to try and play by both sets of rules.

We have a choice, although born in Satan’s court we can enter God’s court. To enter his court we must surrender the ‘old’‘ self to Jesus and enter through his gate, the free gift of salvation, (our justification). Then we need to become the ‘new’ self by learning and applying the rules of the new game, getting rid of the old and putting on the new, (our sanctification).

And by the way, there are no bleachers in the game of life. We are in one court or the other. We need to ask ourselves, whose court am I in and whose rules am I playing by?

My prayer for you this week

“Creator God, Thank-you for your admonition, your wisdom and your promise. Your ‘Word,’ telling us that if we are to come after Jesus, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him. For if we want to save our life we must lose it, and when we lose our life for Jesus we will find it. Your ‘wisdom’ in asking, what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? And your ‘promise’, that the Son of Man is going to come in Your glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. Amen and amen.” Matthew 16:24-28

Have a great week

by Alec Niemi
used by permission

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The post Two Courts can be found at Thoughts about God.

“He is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes away not only our sins but the sins of all the world.” 1 John 2:2 (NLT)

A few years ago, I participated in a course called The Ancient Paths put on by Family Foundations International. It was a time of beautiful healing for me.  After bringing my stuff to Jesus time and time again at the cross – every detail, every bad thing, every lie that had been whispered to me, every wrong turn I had taken, I was amazed again by the power of Jesus, and especially Jesus on the cross.

I got a glimpse, even in just a small way, of what He must have experienced on the cross. Besides the humiliation, besides the physical pain, He took the sins of the world on him. As I looked at the stuff I had in my life – the pain, the disappointments, the sin, knowing how heavy these things had been in my heart, I couldn’t imagine Him carrying the sins and pain and disappointments of every person who has ever lived and will ever live on this earth. But He did. He broke through and created space for each and every one of us. That power is now available to us as we bring our lives to Him.

This is our Jesus, amazing God who became man, my Superhero.

by Idelette McVicker
Used by Permission

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Our self-effort is nothing compared with the glory of God at work in us.

Regardless of our background, skills, sharp wit, and dedicated heart for success, the real truth about our Christian lives is that God is at work in us, and He can do so much more through us than you or I could ever do without Him. We do not have to psych ourselves up to accomplish something for God. In fact, we know that even in our feeblest weakness God is able to work through us – and that is what we count on.

Yes, the world is waiting to see the truth and all we have to do is be available, and yet something stands in the way of this happening. It is us. We are in the way. We hide the truth behind the masks we wear because we are not willing to be seen as the sinners we really are.

The glory of Christ can only truly be seen in contrast to our own despicable sinfulness.  As we begin to lose a heartfelt awareness of our own wretchedness as Christians, we begin to lose the full significance of Christ’s work on the cross for everyone. His glory is seen only against the horribleness of our sin. Yet we create masks to hide our sins. Our masks return us to bondage and keep us from the freedom found in His Spirit’s liberty.

Masked with near perfection, sin hides itself beneath the surface of good churches, good confessions, good works, and good intentions. Everyone really knows that something is wrong, but because of all the good rituals, works and confessions, sin is not seen for its exceeding sinfulness (Romans 7:13). When our sin is not seen as exceeding sinfulness, our light is no longer His, but darkness masquerading behind all the ‘right‘ things we do, making our darkness even darker.

We are all called to be ministers of the new covenant. God is making us able. We understand that God breathes into our lives and through us to all those around us – our families, our neighbors, our workplace, our community, our world. If we are willing to live unmasked, life will never be the same again.

by John Fischer
Used by Permission

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The post Living Unmasked can be found at Thoughts about God.

*written in 2011 but applicable to today

“For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be”. Matthew 24:37-39

We seem to have experienced more natural disasters in the past two years than ever before. Thousands have died in hurricanes, typhoons, fires and earthquakes. Recently we watched with horror on live television and then played over and over the disaster in Japan.

First it was an earthquake, then a tsunami and then a nuclear catastrophe. The power moved the coastline of Japan eight feet and shifted the position of the earth’s axis about 6.5 inches, causing the earth to rotate slightly faster, shortening the day by 1.8 microseconds.

As I listened to the reports, I realized that the news without knowing it was describing that which is to come as prophesied by John the Revelator while exiled on the Isle of Patmos. I thought of Luke 21:28… “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift your heads, because redemption is drawing near.”

The world today remains mostly oblivious to all that is happening, not just with natural disasters, but economically and socially. As in the days of Noah, people ignored all the warnings and they did not understand even until the flood came and took them all away.

God is trying to get our attention. Sometimes God speaks to our heart, emotion or intellect through his Word, our prayer life, dreams and visions, reflection or meditation. God also speaks to us through the people in our lives.

God also uses circumstances good and bad to get our attention and calls us to his agenda. Anything that happens to us in life can work for good if we engage our circumstances as opportunities to be conformed to Christ’s image (Romans 8:28-29)

So we are admonished to look up and look around at what is happening in the world, listen to others and most importantly, listen to God. Look at the world and see the signs as we listen to what God is trying to tell to his people.

Think of the flood, of the earthquake and other ways God uses his awesome power to get attention. Recent events have been cataclysmic, but for those who have read Revelation, we haven’t seen anything like it yet. Redemption is drawing neigh.
(a thought on life from John Grant)

by John Grant
used by permission

John Grant is a former Florida State Senator and is a practicing attorney

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The post The Awesome Power of God can be found at Thoughts about God.

“He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer (and fasting)” Mark 9:29

Prayer became more of a discipline in my life after I yielded the control of life to Jesus Christ and began to walk in the Spirit. (Until then, I called to God in emergencies and before meals, but talking to God had not become a way of life.) Then the Bible became alive to me and I began to pray specifically, trusting in and testing God’s promises. Many, many prayers were answered.

I also began to fast. Sometimes for three days, sometimes once a week, sometimes for 10 days or two weeks. Sometimes it would be a complete fast – only water. Sometimes I would have juice. At times I would give up eating certain foods, or watching television or even wearing makeup.

When our son was in his early 20s, we discovered he was addicted to alcohol.  For a while he alienated himself from us and from the rest of the family. We never saw him drunk – not once – but others had and we loved him too much to let him destroy himself.

I love coffee and our children often joked that I was addicted. So I reasoned, ‘If they are right, my prayers for our son are phony.’  So I decided, with God’s help, I would stop drinking coffee until he quit drinking alcohol.  And that is what I did.  Giving up something I really enjoyed so that perhaps God would deliver our son.

God answered. As a family, we decided to have an intervention. We all told him that we loved him, but knew he was in deep trouble and wanted him to go to a treatment center to get help. Before the intervention, my husband made the arrangements for his flight and stay at the treatment center.  His boss not only gave him a leave of absence, but helped pay for his treatment.  There was only one thing left – he had to agree to go.

Thankfully, he did agree to go and after six weeks at the center he came home.  He was delivered from the addiction to alcohol.

Sometimes we have to fast and pray to have our prayers answered.  If God impresses you to do so, let me encourage you to obey Him.

Father God, I sure don’t understand the increased power that fasting brings to our intercession, but I do know that You expected Your followers to fast. Please cause Your people to fast and pray so Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Thank you.  Amen.

by Katherine Kehler
Used by Permission

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A Prayer for Conflict Resolution

A Prayer for Those Carrying Heavy Burdens

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The post Fasting can be found at Thoughts about God.