God's Hand is in Our Pain
Rest assured in the midst of your trouble, no matter what it is, God’s sovereign hand is at work. It will literally revolutionize your whole mental attitude toward life.
Rest assured in the midst of your trouble, no matter what it is, God’s sovereign hand is at work. It will literally revolutionize your whole mental attitude toward life.
Jesus urged His disciples, who were still shaken by His talk of death, to overcome their fear by depending on the Holy Spirit, claiming Christ’s peace, accepting God’s plan for the future, and following His pattern of obedience to the Father.
Chuck Swindoll has four simple words of advice for dealing with fear and they all have to do with choosing to trust the Lord instead of running scared.
God gives us wisdom so we can view life with objectivity and handle it with stability. When we place our faith in Christ we have access to wisdom through the Holy Spirit.
The man-made philosophies of materialism, hedonism, humanism, and fatalism are false foundations that will never bring contentment. Examine your lifestyle—are any of these philosophical foundations guiding your decisions?
Since heaven will be our ultimate destination, we need to spend less time complaining about our struggles and trials on earth, where we temporarily live, and more time learning as much as possible about heaven, where we will live forever.
We live in a world where the majority is heading the wrong way. As Christians we swim upstream, against the flow who are moving away from God.
We have come to the fourth and final mental picture—a productive vine—another vivid analogy preserved for us in the Word of God. In fact, this one comes to us from the lips of Jesus as He left His disciples words of encouragement just before He was crucified. They have been recorded for us in the 15th chapter of John, a chapter that centres attention on three vital relationships the Christian must maintain.
Acceptance means you don’t make people jump through hoops—you take them as they are.
One of Jesus’ most vivid metaphors is of a vine and branches found in John 15:1–11. Pastor Chuck Swindoll unfolds the symbolism of the Father as the vinedresser, Jesus as the sustaining vine, and believers as the branches.