Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
Christians are not immune from stress fractures, especially vocational Christian workers. How many pastors or missionaries do you know who truly enjoy guilt-free leisure? How many Christian executives can you name who really take sufficient time to relax?
Your defiance will come out in the most amazing ways: a battered child; a crime of passion; a blistering tongue-lashing; running away from home; an illicit pregnancy; an ugly, caustic line of profane words; an affair; domestic disharmony; a ruined testimony.
Seeds that one plants grow. Often they bear ugly, treacherous thorns. They grow to such proportions that they bite and sting and hurt and infect us. God uses those thorns to prick us, to get us back on the right path.
Mark it down in bold print: Defiance still makes God angry.
The seeds of unaccountability were finally harvested...as they always are. The fruit? Unchecked independence. Nobody can get away with unaccountability. After a while, you’ve got to pay the piper. And that’s what Solomon did in the latter years of his life.
Although the term defiance does not appear in Scripture, acts and attitudes of defiance often do. No matter what the term, the scene is never pretty.
If you live intimidated by people, then you need to come to terms with your lack of peace. God is bigger than any person.
Now, in case you choose to live like this and to lean in that manner on the living Lord, I want to warn you ahead of time, people won’t understand. If you’re in a situation that calls for panic, yet you don’t panic, they’re going to want to know what’s wrong with you. Isn’t that interesting?
When you have a dream and a purpose and some goals in life that you really want to see occur, your tendency is to leave the immediate and to get on with the goals rather than to stay faithful in the assignments of the present.
Steadfast is from a term that means “to lean, to rest, to support.” It’s the idea of being sustained as a result of leaning on something supporting you. The words “of mind” come from one verb that means “to frame” or “to fashion, to form.”
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