“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus… And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them… Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?… I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.”  Romans 8 (NLT)

We stood on the shores of the Pacific Ocean as the waves relentlessly rolled into shore. Seabirds soared from rock to rock, seemingly unaware of the power of the surge just below them. With no traffic sounds to obscure our hearing, only the roar of the water and the occasional chirp of the birds were audible. Wave after wave. Thunder after thunder.

I thought of this just a few hours ago when I heard the news that the granddaughter of a dear friend had been killed in an auto accident. Then an email message that another friend, suffering from cancer, is weakening. Earlier in the week we received word that an acquaintance had died suddenly. Wave after wave. Thunder after thunder.

“…when sorrows like sea billows roll…” That’s how one man described his lot after financial ruin from the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and then the death of his four daughters in a transatlantic ship collision. Horatio Spafford went to meet his wife in England after his daughters deaths and when the ship on which he was travelling neared the place of the sea tragedy, he began writing the words to a great hymn:

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
’It is well, it is well, with my soul.’

Spafford’s poetry—and his later life as a faithful follower of Jesus—indicates how he could say, “It is well with my soul.” Six important words: “Thou has taught me to day…” This man and his wife had walked closely with Jesus, absorbed His love and learned to trust Him in the good times so when the hard, even tragic, times came, through their tears they knew enough of God’s character to know that nothing could separate them—or their daughters—from His love.

We can’t prevent all the accidents and illnesses of life, but we can learn to make Christ the center of our lives each day, trusting Him so that “Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, ‘It is well with my soul.’”

Thank you, Father, for being always present with us. Help me trust you even when I can’t see your hand so that “it is well with my soul” will be daily on my lips.

by Marilyn Ehle
Used by Permission

FURTHER READING

God Uses Sorrow for Good

Anguish of the Soul

The post The Roar of Sorrow appeared first on Thoughts About God.

I hate feeling empty.

Emptiness leaves me feeling hopeless, worn out, used up, exhausted and alone.

In Ruth 1:20-21 (NLV)  Naomi says, “Don’t call me Naomi. . . Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me.  I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty.”

We are given only a glimpse of the heartache and sorrow that brought Naomi to the point of such emptiness and despair.  What must it have been like for her to travel home to her native land empty?  Did her heart break a little more with each step she took?  What pain she must have experienced as she traveled farther and farther away from the family she buried.  Naomi feels used up, spit out and with nothing left to give emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually.

What has left you feeling empty?

I experienced a time of intense emptiness after the break-up of a close friend.  I didn’t want the friendship to end and I worked with everything I had in me to hold on to the last remaining remnants of our relationship but it slipped through my fingers like sand and I was left with a gnawing emptiness that wouldn’t go away;  a pain in my gut that never seemed to lessen.

At the risk of being redundant, let me just say that emptiness leaves us empty. 

But without the emptiness how can we be filled?

Think about it, if we’re already full, how can God fill us?

What if emptiness is a good thing?

What if it is part of God’s plan you, for me?

When we are empty of our self; our arrogance, our own dreams, our thoughtlessness – than God is able to fill us with Him.

For me, the loneliness and pain I experienced drove me to my knees and created a space for God to fill.  The emptiness allowed me to see God in a way I had never seen Him before.  It brought my heart into a place of surrender.

Our faith as believers is anchored in emptiness.  The empty tomb is the cornerstone of our faith. We serve a risen Savior, who died and left the tomb of death, never to return!

Then the angel spoke  . . .  “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead . . .”   Matthew 18:5 (NLV)

We have a lot of things in this world that cause us to become empty – empty bank accounts, wayward children, broken relationships, the death of a loved one, regret and on and on . . .

I want to encourage you to embrace the emptiness . . .  and allow God to fill you with His Holy Spirit.

Remember, it is only through our emptiness that we can be filled!

by Kristi Huseby
Used by Permission

We are filled with the Holy Spirit by faith alone. However, true prayer is one way of expressing your faith. The following is a suggested prayer:

“Dear Father, I need You. I acknowledge that I have been directing my own life and that, as a result, I have sinned against You. I thank You that You have forgiven my sins through Christ’s death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take His place on the throne of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me to be filled, and as You promised in Your Word that You would do if I asked in faith. I now thank You for directing my life and for filling me with the Holy Spirit.”

Further Reading

•  Understanding the Holy Spirit

•  More than a Father

•   Going Deeper with God

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The post Emptiness appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Read: Ephesians 2: 1-10

Guilt can be like a poison working insidiously on the inside to create havoc in our thoughts and emotions. The antidote is to understand why we feel guilty and to know how to apply scripture teachings on the subject.

Misunderstanding grace results in guilty feelings which make us think that in order to be a “good” Christian, we must clean up our act ourselves. In contrast, the message of grace is this: At the cross, Jesus paid our
sin debt in full and declared us righteous in His sight.  We do not have to measure up; through Christ, we have been made acceptable exactly as we are.

Another thing that can make us feel guilty is confusion about confession
and forgiveness.  Some believers are concerned about hidden sins that
they haven’t yet identified; others worry about whether they’ve confessed
enough to be forgiven. It is true that 1 John 1:9 tells us to confess our
wrongdoings, but doing so is not what makes us forgiven.  It is what
Jesus did at Calvary that provides forgiveness of all our sins.

Refusing to let go of the past can also produce guilty emotions, because
some of us feel undeserving  of forgiveness – knowing what sins we
have committed can lead to an ongoing sense of shame.  Jesus Christ
died on the cross so that all our sins – past, present, and future – could
be forgiven.  This is part of the miracle of grace.

The truth of God’s Word frees us from the prison of guilt and allows
us to live life His way.  Are you walking in freedom?

By Dr. Charles Stanley
Used by permission
https://www.intouch.org/

If you have never walked in a relationship with Christ and if you want to know Him and be released from y our guilt, you can start today by committing and submitting your llife to him. You can start this with a simple 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

If you prayed today and asked Jesus Christ to come into your life and take control, we would love to hear from you. Some helpful internet links will be sent to you and we can also connect you with an email mentor if you’d like that. Your choice. But we’d still love to hear from you.

If  you don’t have a relationship with Jesus, you can learn how to start one at this link:
https://thoughtsaboutgod.com/four-laws

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The post Dealing with Feelings of Guilt appeared first on Thoughts About God.