A Chance Encounter

I was probably about 10 years old, give or take, and was riding my trusty Schwinn bicycle around my small town just as I often did. I came upon several kids, also on their bikes, who were more or less just congregating in the middle of the road.

I immediately recognized some of the kids as “those kids” that attended the one and only Christian school in our small county. It was located just down the road from the public schools, but it may as well have been miles away. 

I barely knew of these kids, as they rarely interacted with the rest of us who went to the county school system. To me, they all dressed funny and seemed a bit strange.

Nevertheless, I stopped to see what was going on, as there were a couple of kids I was familiar with in the group.

I don’t remember much about the conversation that took place—except that the Christian school kids were talking about Jesus and Hell. These weren’t my favorite topics, but I was curious to hear what they were saying, so I tuned in.

These kids, who appeared younger than I was, were saying that it was necessary to accept Jesus so that you could be “saved” and to go to Heaven and avoid going to Hell. I believe they even quoted a few scriptures to back up what they were saying.

I’ll admit that I didn’t like the tone of the conversation at all. It was disturbing. My mom regularly took me to one of the local churches in town, but at that time I don’t believe I had ever heard this particular teaching about Jesus.

As I recall, at our church there was some talk about Jesus being the son of God, but there was little if any mention about accepting him as your Savior as the only means to get to Heaven.

To be honest, hearing what they had to say about the gospel scared me. I had always assumed I’d go to Heaven just based on the fact that I was a “good person” who went to church and recognized that there was a God. 

It completely turned my idea of life after death upside down. Was what they were saying true? Did I really need Jesus in my life?

After a few minutes, I left the small group and continued on my bike ride, trying to put the conversation out of my mind. 

However, I never forgot what those young kids had to say about Jesus and salvation. Their words stayed with me over the years, and as I got older, I became more and more convicted of my need for Jesus as my Savior and that just a belief that there is a God in Heaven wasn’t enough for me to get to Heaven.

Things culminated in later years. My mom and I had switched churches by this time, to one where faith in Jesus was regularly preached as a prerequisite for eternal life in Heaven. 

Finally, at the age of 15, I gave my life to Jesus. It took many years, but I finally came to a saving realization in the Lordship of Jesus and the necessity of repentance and giving my life to Him. 

However, it all started back on that street with that group of kids several years earlier. That meeting left an impression on me that I’ve never forgotten.

I’m grateful to God for planting that seed in my heart even at that young age. It took some time, but the seed kept growing and came to fruition years later.

Who knows where I would be without that chance encounter on the street that day?

Live In the Present

Did you know that God wants us to live in the present? His wish for us is that we would focus on each day as it comes, savoring all the goodness in it that He has blessed us with.

He doesn’t want us overly consumed with either the past or the future, as it is the action we take today, in the present, that has the power to affect our lives. 

Too many of us focus on the past—what happened yesterday, last week, or last year. 

We live with regret over mistakes we made, over foolish things we said or did, or just over circumstances that didn’t go the way we wanted them to.

The Apostle Paul sums up God’s desire for us nicely in the book of Philippians:

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on…

Phil. 3:13-14a

Jesus Himself tells us:

No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Luke 9:62

What He means, I believe, is that whatever task or project we find ourselves engaged in, focus on it entirely, without worrying about the past.

At the other end of the spectrum are worriers who spend much of their mental energy focusing on the what-ifs of the future. 

Well, what if such and such happens? Will I have enough money to meet all my expenses this month?

God lays out a pretty simple plan to combat this kind of debilitating worry:

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [clothes, food, etc.] will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Luke 6:33-34

God doesn’t want our minds turmoiled over what the future holds. In the verse just before the two above, Jesus says that it’s the pagans who chase after all the material things in life.

As a believer in Christ, we can count on God to provide everything we need, day by day. As the Lord’s Prayer emphasizes:

Give us each day our daily bread.

Luke 11:3

Just as God provided manna for the Israelites each morning during their time wandering in the desert, He will provide for us the things we need when we need them.

So, if we’re not supposed to spend time and mental energy regretting the past or worrying about the future, that just leaves the present.

And that is exactly where God wants us to be. This present moment is all that we have. The past can’t be changed, and the future isn’t guaranteed. 

Our lives are literally lived out moment by moment, and they are shaped by our decisions made each passing second.

As the psalmist writes:

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Ps. 118:24

We need to focus all our energies on working and living for the Lord today, because that is all we have in our control.

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

2 Cor. 6:2b

So, what are we supposed to focus on every day? Paul tells us:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Phil. 4:8

If we spend our mental energy on the needs and concerns of today—while seeking God’s will for our lives—we’ll be much happier and have much less stress to deal with.

Knowing About Jesus Versus Knowing Jesus

Do you know Jesus? That may seem like a pretty simple question, but how you answer it is quite important.

Many people have heard of Jesus, that He was a man who lived a long time ago and who some say had some good moral teachings. 

Beyond that, there are many people who know of Jesus. They’ve heard a little more about Him than the first group and may even believe that He was a great prophet who had some radical ideas.

With all due respect, those who simply know some things about Jesus, don’t truly know Him, and they definitely don’t know Him as their Savior.

I may know of the President of the United States, but I certainly don’t know him on a personal level.

To know Jesus Christ as your Savior and have a daily, ongoing relationship with Him is the only true gateway to an intimate relationship with God the Father. 

As Jesus Himself said,

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6

Jesus also said,

I and the Father are one.

John 10:30

Simply put, there is but one true pathway to God, and that is through His Son, Jesus. If you don’t know Jesus, then you don’t know the Father.

Our sin is what separates us from God, creating a chasm between Him and us that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan into eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 

That is the point at which sin entered the perfect world God had created.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Rom. 3:23

Hundreds of years later, God made a covenant with the Israelites, giving them the Law, which they were supposed to adhere to.

However, the Law was simply the precursor to the work that Jesus did on the cross. The Law helped humankind to recognize their sin and the futile attempts at keeping all aspects of the law.

Being the just God that He is, and since man failed at keeping the Law, God the Father sent His Son Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sins once and for all.

He allowed Jesus to be flogged and cruelly murdered by crucifixion, one of the most excruciating forms of torture and death ever devised.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom. 5:8

But that’s not all. After His death, Jesus lay in the tomb for three days. Then the Father resurrected Him, putting on a grand display of Christ’s power over death. 

With Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have the same hope of eternal life if we simply repent of our sins and let Jesus into our lives as our Savior. 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom. 6:23

There is no other pathway to an eternity spent living in Heaven with God.

When you die, if you haven’t let Jesus into your life as your Savior, you’ll spend all of eternity separated from God in a horrendous lake of fire.

You may say, “Well, that just doesn’t make any sense. I’m a good person. God wouldn’t send me to some place like that.”

It’s not that God is sending you there; it’s that you’re making the choice to live in eternal separation from God.

Or you may simply not believe the Bible and all the truth contained in it.

For all the Christians who take the Bible literally, the worst thing that could happen is that they’re wrong, and we simply cease to exist after we die.

However, if the Bible is right and you’re wrong, you’re putting your entire eternity at stake. You risk ending up in a place that you will definitely wish you weren’t in.

However, it’s easy to change all that. If you’ve never accepted Christ as your Savior, there’s no better time to do it than right now.

Take a moment and pray to God. Tell Him you’re sorry for the sins you’ve committed and that you want to live a better life from this point forward. 

Thank Him for sending Jesus to die for your sins, washing you clean of them, and making you righteous in His eyes. 

Then ask Jesus to come into your heart as your Lord and Savior. Acknowledge that Jesus is God in human form and that he is the true pathway to salvation.

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

Rom. 10:9-10

The next thing you need to do is find a Bible-believing church to begin attending.

Find the pastor and tell him you’ve recently accepted Christ into your life, and that you’d like to be baptized as an outward sign of your acceptance of Jesus as Lord of your life.

The steps to accepting Jesus and becoming a Christian are simple. But if you’ve been living in sin for a long time, they may seem like a huge commitment. 

Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that everything will be completely rosy after you accept Christ.

You’ll still have problems, but you’ll now have God in your corner helping you, as well as Jesus and the Holy Spirit interceding on your behalf with the Father (Rom. 8:26, 34).

Don’t put off making the biggest and best decision of your life. One day it will be too late.

Our Difficulty in Relying on God

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Rom. 8:32

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Heb. 4:16

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

1 John 5:4

Why is it so hard for many of us to rely on God? After all, He is our Creator and Father. We should look to Him for everything in our lives, from the very small to the very important.

Whether it’s help getting us to work on time with a good parking spot or we’re trusting Him to see us through a bad diagnosis we just received, it should be the same.

Why do we waiver back and forth so much?

I believe that the biggest answer to these questions lies in the fact that we’re taught to be self-sufficient.

Especially for those of you reading this who grew up in the United States, we learn from a young age that it’s us against the world in many instances. 

If we’re going to get anywhere in life, we’ve got to buckle down and work hard, relying on help from no one but ourself. Because, ultimately, ourself is all we’ve got.

I don’t believe this same deep sense of self-sufficiency exists in other countries to the degree that it does in the U.S. 

Our country was founded on a spirit of independence, and this ideal is ingrained in us beginning at a young age.

Think of the founding fathers who broke away from rule under England to form their own country. That’s the kind of independent thinking we Americans are dealing with.

Going back to God—I believe that many of us feel more comfortable with the idea of fighting through the jungle of life by ourselves rather than waiting on God and relying on Him to help us fight through the bush.

It’s a quaint thought that God is there to help us, but do we really need Him? After all, we’ve been living this whole independence thing all our lives. 

Surely, we’ll be fine on our own.

Oh, if God wants to lend a hand here or there or open a door for us, we won’t object. We just won’t expect it or wait for that to happen.

The problem is that God doesn’t want us to embrace this individualistic attitude. He wants to be our everything, our all. 

Just as the famous verses in Proverbs 3:5-6 instruct us:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

In addition, several times in the gospels we are instructed to put God first and He will provide for us, like this passage in Matthew:

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matt. 6:30-33

For those of us used to relying on ourselves almost entirely to get through life, it is a difficult change to let God have His way with our life.

I think to really embrace the sovereignty of God in our lives, we need to saturate our minds with His word (the Bible), especially any passages that talk about trusting God, relying on Him, or waiting on Him.

We get impatient when things don’t go exactly as we want them to, and we often try to force changes that are better left to God. I know I’ve been guilty of that more than a few times.

As God tells us through the prophet Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isa. 55:8-9

There’s no way that we can comprehend all that God has in store for us if we’ll simply trust in and rely on Him. Nothing we could imagine could even come close. We’re told so here:

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.

1 Cor. 2:9

So, to overcome our deep-seated desire for self-sufficiency, we need to stay in God’s word, paying close attention to any passages that deal with God’s sovereignty, relying solely on Him, and being submissive to His will. 

Doing so will help us get a lot farther along in life on the path God has chosen for us—and also with much less stress.

The Seen Versus the Unseen

As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Cor. 4:18

Have you ever paused to think that everything you see around you—including your home and all of your belongings, your car, the buildings in your city, and even all of nature—will one day cease to exist?

That’s right, just as the above verse says, everything we see is transient, or temporary. One day all the things we’ve worked for in our lives will be gone. 

It kind of makes you wonder if we really should be putting so much emphasis on things, doesn’t it?

We know everything on earth will one day disappear, as John tells us in Revelation 21:1:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 

In the following verse, we find that John then,

saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

Rev. 21:2

The new Jerusalem is where all believers in Christ will eventually live with God throughout eternity.

In fact, in that same verse in 2 Corinthians above, we read that it is the unseen things that are eternal. 

And guess what? We’re not taking any of our things with us to this new and beautiful city. All the stuff that we’ve become so attached to here on earth will be gone in an instant. It’s that temporary.

Nothing we see on earth now will last; however, God himself, the multitude of heavenly angels, and the new Heaven and earth will all last forever.

Think about it. There is a whole world that we can’t see right now, which will actually live on throughout eternity. 

And all the stuff we’ve worked to accumulate during our lifetimes will all vanish in the blink of an eye.

It kind of makes you want to rethink your priorities, doesn’t it?

However, we can actually send treasures on ahead to Heaven while we’re still here on earth. Jesus tells us,

Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Matt. 6:20

What exactly does He mean by treasures? Your Heavenly treasures are the good works you do here while spending your time on earth. 

Paul encourages us in the book of Ephesians,

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Eph. 2:10

God has a plan for each of us, and while it doesn’t necessarily include stockpiling a bunch of “stuff,” it does include good works like loving and helping our neighbors and other people who touch our lives in one way or another.

These works can take a number of forms, but in the end it all boils down to showing the love of Jesus to those we come in contact with. 

This means helping them, encouraging them, and giving to them as God leads us.

That is the true treasure that we’re storing up in Heaven. And while we can’t see it, we know through faith that it is as real as anything we see on earth (actually more so). 

Better yet, we know this treasure will never deteriorate, fall apart, or pass away, unlike the latest gadget we just had to buy.

So, with that in mind, are you going to focus on the things that are seen, or on the eternal unseen things?

Worship God for the Right Reason

Why do you worship God? That may seem like a simple question, but I believe that how we answer it reveals a lot about our motives and attitudes.

Simply put, we should worship and fear God because of who He is. 

As the our loving Father and the Creator of the universe, we should naturally revere the Lord and give Him the respect He deserves.

However, we may be guilty of worshiping God out of selfish motives.

We should ask ourselves if we honor and worship God because of His awesome, loving nature, or because we hope to get on His good side and perhaps receive more blessings?

I know that I have been guilty of falling into that trap of selfishness. 

Many times, the enemy has planted the thought in my mind that if I just give God His due, then He will cause my life to be better and more fulfilling. 

It’s like I was playing a game with God, thinking that I could somehow buy His favor if I “worshiped” Him more or better. 

This approach sounds like how we might look at our job, trying to win brownie points with the boss by buttering him up and being a “yes” man or woman.

By giving the boss praise and compliments—and getting on their good side—we might score a raise or promotion sooner.

However, God isn’t our boss. He’s our loving Father, and he wants us to love Him and worship Him out of this love as well as a healthy, reverential fear.

This isn’t the fear that he will hurt us, but fear that recognizes He is the Ruler of the universe and that all power is in His hands. 

So, if we’re worshiping Him for any other reason, it’s wrong, and we need to rethink our motives.

God is not some sort of cosmic genie who will give us more stuff and a better life if we pull the right strings. 

True, there are many verses in the Bible that tell us God gives favor to those who love and fear Him:

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!

Ps. 126:1

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.

1 Cor. 2:9

The Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive.

Deut. 6:24

We can find many more such verses in scripture, but these are enough to give you the overall picture that God rewards and blesses us when we fear, love, and honor Him as He so fittingly deserves.

However, He doesn’t want us to worship Him just out of a motivation for reward. 

God desires a mature, intimate relationship with us, one that is built on love, not just His love for us, but our love for Him.

He gave us free will so that we could freely choose to love, respect, and worship Him. 

That’s the way God made us. He didn’t want robots that simply worshiped Him because that’s the way they were programmed. 

He made human beings in His image, with a free will who will either choose or refuse to worship their Creator out of love and reverence.

So, the next time you’re praying or singing praises to God, think about why you’re doing it. 

Is it because you love Him or because you hope to get something from Him?

Freedom in Christ Is a Wonderful Blessing

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Cor. 3:17

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:36

And by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. 

Acts 13:39

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Rom. 6:22

What does freedom in Christ mean? This is a question I have often pondered over my years as a Christian. To be honest, I’ve never understood the nuances of this idea, although I have some thoughts about it.

The concept of freedom in Christ stands in direct contrast to what many non-Christians believe that life in Christ is all about. 

A common belief is that being a Christian represents anything but freedom, and is instead built around a life of “Don’t do this” and “Don’t do that.” 

For many people, the idea of following Christ is about limiting what you can do and denying yourself all the fun things that life has to offer.

However, God tells us something different in His Word. All the verses above speak of the freedom we have as believers in Christ.

But what exactly is this freedom FROM or freedom TO?

First of all, as believers in Christ one of the most important freedoms we have is freedom from guilt due to our sins.

Christ died and was resurrected to pay the penalty for all our sins, both past and future. If you’ve accepted Jesus into your life, you don’t have any sin that has not been forgiven.

While we may still have to deal with the repercussions of our sins on this fallen earth, we’re no longer burdened with the guilt of our sin, as we’ve been made righteous in God’s sight by the blood of Jesus.

Our freedom in Christ means that we’re innocent and guilt-free.

Because of Jesus’s atoning death, which fulfilled the Old Testament law, we no longer have to make sacrifices to God to wash us clean of sin. Jesus did that once and for all. 

As believers in Christ, God sees us as new creations, clean and justified forever. That should lift our burdens and make our hearts feel lighter.

A second important aspect of our freedom in Christ is that we are free from the chains that sin shackles us with. Repeated sin drags us down and leaves us with an inferior quality of life. 

Jesus said,

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10b

It is difficult to live joyous, peaceful lives when we have sin hanging over us.

With Jesus as our Savior, we should be living a better, more fulfilling life that we were before we accepted Him into our life. 

We are free to live our best life, even though we live in a fallen world plagued with sin and evil. 

God wants us to live each day to the fullest, without worry and anxiety over everyday concerns and problems that non-believers focus on (Matt 6:32).

Lastly, I believe that one of the best parts about freedom in Christ is the absence of death and the promise of eternal life that God has made to us as believers.

In one of the most famous verses in the Bible, we read,

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

With Christ as our Savior, we have freedom over death. Once our fleshly bodies die, we’ll be given new spiritual bodies and live with God forever. We’ll never taste death.

That should give each believer something to eagerly look forward to.

This is just a quick summary of some of the important aspects of freedom in Christ. But it should give us hope as we deal with all the challenges this life gives us.

Can We Really Give God All Our Anxieties?

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:6-7

As you read the above verses, what stands out to you? I know that for myself, I am thrilled about the prospect of giving God all my worries. I could do with a lot less of those. 

So when I read this passage, my mind immediately begins focusing on how good it would feel to be completely worry-free, even if for a short period of time.

But then I inevitably begin to doubt what I’ve read. Can it really be possible to live without any anxieties at all? Is God really telling us He wants us to live in perfect peace?

As much as I believe in my heart that He does want us to be worry-free, I’ll admit it is quite difficult to wrap my head around this concept. 

My mind fights hard against the notion of relying completely on God and banishing all anxiety from my life.

I believe that the key to truly understanding these truths down deep in your spirit lies in the first part of the passage. 

Before Peter tells us to cast all our anxieties on the Lord, he says that we must humble ourselves before Him.

So what does it mean to truly humble ourselves before God? 

According to dictionary.com, to humble yourself means “to lower in condition, importance, or dignity; abase.” 

An alternate definition is “to destroy the independence, power, or will of.”

A third definition says the word means “to make meek.”

These definitions give us a lot to digest. One thing that is clear is that if we’re to humble ourselves to God we must give up our will and live by His will. 

We must understand, accept, and act on the fact that God is greater than us.

Fully submitting ourselves to God is not easy, as the flesh fights continually to insert its independence.

Let’s not overlook the fact that Peter tells us to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand. 

When our lives are completely in submission to God, His hand will protect and guide us, making sure that everything works out for our good (Rom. 8:28).

There is no better and safer place to be than under God’s hand. He will take care of us as long as we humble ourselves before Him.

It is then that we can cast all our cares on Him, because we are completely in submission to His will. 

We can fully count on Him to take care of us, providing everything we need in life (Matt. 6:33).

Humbling ourselves can be difficult, but remembering that God is the all-powerful creator of the universe can help us remember who we are in relation to Him.

Then we will have His perfect peace.

Make it a Habit to Praise God

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we’re completely in control of our destiny.

After all, isn’t that what the American dream is all about — forging our own way in the world toward a life of success and easy living? This ideal has been ingrained in most of us since we were small children. 

In fact, if we’re not striving for success, then we may even think that there’s something wrong with us. We believe that “if it’s to be, it’s up to me.” 

Often, however, this belief can create unbelievable stress on us, leaving us with incredible guilt if we don’t live up to the expectations placed on us by ourselves and others.

However, when we foster these beliefs we completely leave God out of the equation. 

He is intensely concerned with every aspect of our lives and plays a huge role in the success of our daily activities. We would be remiss to ignore Him in this process.

God is at work 24/7 ensuring things work out for our best. 

All you have to do is read Romans 8:28 to understand that:

for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

In addition, we read in Psalms 95:2:

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

I believe that praising God and giving Him glory reinforces His role in our lives. When we give God the praise and glory He deserves, it allows us to see and experience that there’s something bigger than us. 

It realigns our mindset to rely on the God of the universe and not just ourselves and our own skills.

This realignment can lead to an awesome blessing in our lives. Acknowledging God as bigger and more powerful than we are takes a huge chunk of the responsibility of our success off our shoulders. 

Sure, we have to do our part. We must show up each day and

whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.

Col. 3:23

But, ultimately we can relax about the outcome of our daily challenges, knowing in our hearts that our success rests with God. 

After all,

It is he who gives you power to get wealth.

Deut. 8:18a

And,

A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.

John 3:27

Getting the proper spiritual alignment with God will also help ease any feelings of anxiety and depression.

Science has proven that adopting an attitude of gratefulness (for example, giving God praise for what He’s done for us) will help us feel better both emotionally and physically.

It’s really simple when we put everything in perspective — put the kingdom of God first in your life, and He will take care of everything else (Matt. 6:33).

Never Stop Trusting in God

We all know we should trust God. After all, He is the Supreme Creator of the universe and we are His creation. We would not exist without Him and the love He showed when He chose to create us.

With that thought in mind, I’ve put together in no particular order a few verses about trusting in God. Several of these have been important to me when I’ve faced life’s struggles. Perhaps they will help you, too, as you meditate on them. You can easily search the Bible and discover others to add to this list.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Psalm 22:4-5

In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

Isaiah 26:3-4

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

Psalm 9:10

And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Psalm 91:2

I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

Isaiah 12:2

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

Psalm 18:2

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Proverbs 29:25

The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.