Resting in God's Promises

Here are some facts for you to ponder and rejoice in:

   God's Word, the Bible is readily available to each one of us to correct, encourage, comfort and guide us.

   God, the creator of the universe, loves and delights in you and desires to have a personal, intimate relationship with you.
    All of God's promises are true. You can always count on Him.

    He will never leave you or forsake you.

   My heart breaks when I hear statistics saying that many people who call themselves Christians don't believe that the Bible is God's inspired and living Word to us. As I've mentioned before--I think of it as His love letter to me. It becomes dearer to my heart each day because my love for my Savior, Jesus, grows every day.
     It wasn’t always that way though. For many years Jesus wasn’t my top priority. I can see that so clearly now but couldn’t see it then. Satan–the great deceiver is so good at sidetracking us and getting us to focus and spend our time at anything else other than at the feet of Jesus, reading His Word and talking with Him. He loves to keep us so busy with life, our families, and often times with many “good” things so that our time with Jesus is just a few moments squeezed in. It wasn’t until I became very weary of trying to keep up with all that the world says you have to be and have that I was exhausted. I was always seeking that elusive peace, contentment and joy through yet another person (family, friends) place (vacations, church, my home) or thing (food, clothes, TV, movies, books, exercise, etc.). But then I cried out to Jesus and told Him that I wanted to know Him and claimed His promises from James 4:8 “Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.” and from Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”
    God is just waiting patiently for us to desire to know Him.  What I found is that as I picked up His Word and made seeking Him and knowing Him better a priority that He created in my heart more of a hunger to know Him more intimately every day. It was amazing and still is amazing. He is amazing! You can never outgive God. I can promise you that as you step out in faith, He will show up and bless you--often not with more things of this world but more of Himself which is far better than anything else. 
    I still marvel at all the changes He has made in my heart as I have chosen to make knowing Him better and loving Him more the priority of every new day. It's a choice I make every day with every decision. He wants to lead us every step and every moment of every day. My desire is to be so in step with Him that I'm allowing Him to direct and lead me constantly--that I am willing to lay aside my schedule for His--always. That's definitely not easy at times because I want my way, but every time I choose to obey I am blessed because His way is always BEST. That elusive peace, joy, hope and contentment that I was searching for I have now found in Jesus alone. What freedom that brings! I believe every one of His promises because I know and trust Him. Because of that I do not fear what tomorrow holds because I know who holds the future! But...there is much fear in our world. The following statements come from Jon Bloom's blog which he wrote a few days after the terror attack at the Boston Marathon. Satan wants us to believe: "You are not safe anywhere. Your trust in God is a foolish trust. Your God is not going to deliver you." Jon goes on to say that "fearing the Lord is believing the Lord. God's Word is stronger that the evil in the world."  Do you believe that God is in control no matter what happens in our world? Do you stand on God's promises and REST in them?
    I would like to share with you the blog page I mentioned above by Jon Bloom. I encourage you to click this link: Lay Aside the Weight of Fear. I read it on the Desiring God website and made a copy for myself because it has a list of many of God's wonderful promises which I hope and pray will encourage you and bring you peace.  What we read, listen to and fill our minds with is what we become. I pray that we will all become more and more like Jesus as we read His story, His love letter, to us.
    The song I've chosen to share with you is another one that our praise team at church shared with us. It's called "Sovereign". It sums up so well what I've tried to share with you--that our God is in control, that we do not need to fear anything, that all of our hopes, lives, fears and dreams are held in His hands, and we can trust Him!!!