Newness of life breezes in—while birds begin their sweet serenade! Who doesn’t love Spring?!! I love how God created seasons in life—in nature around us AND in our hearts. Of all the seasons, it’s Springtime that best paints a picture of God’s great faithfulness!
Even with the zeal of Springtime clearly upon us—my heart must not have read that memo yet this morning. : )
Ever feel the spirit of discouragement weighing you down?
For me, it wasn’t just any one thing—but a general sense of personal failure that suddenly seemed to have built up to colossal proportions.
It didn’t take long for me to recognize that spirit wasn’t from the Lord. I know God never communicates through condemnation—but through conviction and loving direction.
So I quickly opened my Bible to turn to Him for counsel…
“And if Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
But now is Christ risen from the dead,
and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
Death is swallowed up in victory.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
This wasn’t where I expected to be led to at all! And then I realized what God was showing me: HOPE!!!
Hope for all of us, in the form of His ALWAYS sufficient grace! All because of Jesus.
It just takes one fresh look at our risen Savior—to renew our faith and remind us of God’s overcoming, Resurrection power! Death is swallowed up in victory.
Suddenly in that moment—by God’s Word renewing my mind—it felt like that spirit of discouragement got swallowed up too!
Wow! I thought, what beautiful EN-couragement to obliterate my Dis-couragement!
God’s Word is SO powerful. My hope in sharing this, is that you’ll be encouraged too.
With Easter coming soon, we can already be glorying in our Lord’s Resurrection power…power to overcome sin and death. And always, His grace for grace…
“Grace and glory
differ very little,
the one is the seed,
the other the flower;
grace is glory militant,
glory is grace triumphant.”
-Thomas Brooks
