Author: mary

We live in a broken, desolate land. We see people dying, relationships torn apart, and a nation divided. We are in desperate need of healing. Yet people have turned away from the Lord and tried going their own way. God has been patient with us, desiring for us to change our ways and choose Him. But we will meet our own destruction if we continue to go down the path we are headed down. Christians must seek Him and pray for Him to heal our land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 Yes tells us that if we want to see healing in our land we have to pray and seek the face of God. So Christians, we can’t just sit by and watch as the world walks down a dark path that leads to death. We have to be actively seeking the face of God. We also have to believe that if we seek his face he will hear the prayers of his people just like he did time and time again in the word of God. Remember when Abraham went before God pleading on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah? God said that he would not destroy the land if he found but even one faithful person in the land. God ended up destroying Solomon good Maura because there were no faithful people. In our land today there are faithful people who are seeking his face on behalf of their nation. We must believe that our voices will be heard when we are crying together.

Spend time in prayer today for your friends, your family, your community, and our nation. Go before the Lord and his throne and cry out on behalf of all of the people you know who do not know. Turn toward him and believe that he can heal our nation.

Have you ever had a strained friendship or relationship? Maybe the two of you did not see eye to eye or maybe the relationship was broken because of sin and deceit. There are many tools the devil can use to break apart God’s people. He loves to use other Christians to carry out his plans. He is deceitful and 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” He will bring disunity if he can! How can we restore broken relationships or be alert when the enemy is trying to break apart relationships?

First, pray for the broken friendship or relationship. Pray that God can bring about restoration and make what was broken whole again. Pray that He will give you an opportunity to try and mend it. God is the God of the impossible. If He gave Sarah a baby at 90 years old and brought forth Jesus from a virgin, He can do anything. Trust that He will restore it if that is part of His will. Second, look at what went wrong and see if there is something you need to ask for forgiveness for. Even when we think that we are not in the wrong, there is usually a little bit of truth to be found. Can you make things right by asking for forgiveness from the person you wronged? Third, use this as a lesson to be alert when the enemy attacks your relationships. He doesn’t want to see God’s people coming together in fellowship and worship so he will do anything he can to attack it.

Trust in the Lord to heal friendships and restore what was broken. Know that there is nothing difficult or impossible for Him. Nothing surprises Him or shakes Him off of His throne. He is always in control.

God is the mender in our lives. He is the only one who can pick up the pieces and put them back together. He can restore what was broken. If we drop a clay pot and it shatters, we can work and work to try and glue each piece where it once was, but it will never be the same again. God, however, not only picks up the pieces, but He puts them back together and makes it look like new again. He is the only one who can. We cannot put ourselves back together.

In the Old Testament, the people of Israel would burn sacrifices to offer something pleasing to God and try and mend the broken relationship. The sacrifices were meant to cover their sins, yet there were never enough. They had different sacrifices for different types of sins, too. David realized in Psalm 51 that the actual action of the sacrifices was not what God delighted in. In fact he said in verse 16, “You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering.” What he realized changed his entire relationship with God. He said in verse 17, “The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” David realized that what God really desired of Him was a broken and repentant heart! It was about the attitude of his heart, not the actions of his hands. Our hands can lift up in praise, but if we are not repenting before Him, then our praise means nothing!

Jesus became the sacrifice once and for all in the New Testament. He sacrificed His life for our sins so that we could be free in Christ. What do you need to do today to fix what has been broken? How can you restore your relationship with God? It starts with prayer and asking for Him to accept your repentance and forgive you for straying away. He will mend what was once broken!

Psalm 18:2 says “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” God is our rock. He is the foundation for the Christian life. When there is a shaky foundation, then everything about it can crumble. With a strong foundation, the Christian Life will be secure, strong, and built to last. Matthew 7:24 states that anyone who is wise and listens to the teaching of the Lord is like someone who builds their house upon a rock. Nothing will destroy the house, not the rains, the floods, severe storms, or anything else because it is built to last. The verse goes on to say that if anyone hears God’s teaching but doesn’t obey, then they are like someone who builds her house upon the sand. The second the fierce storms come, the house will be easily washed away.

God is the rock. He is the fortress where we can retreat to and find safety. In his salvation, He delivers, with His shield, He protects us from the enemy. He is our stronghold, a well fortified fortress. Nothing can penetrate the walls around us when we allow him to fight for us. He never moves. He never leaves us. If we find ourselves without his protection, it is only because we have left the shelter of His love. Everyday we have to choose to live, move, and breathe in His presence. We have to trust that His way is better and He knows our future.

So find solitude in His presence, safety in His shelter, salvation in His Fortress, and comfort in His arms. There is no God like our God and no other way to salvation than coming to Him through Jesus Christ. He is our rock.

Faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit that requires action. It is not enough to make promises and say that you are going to do something or be something; you have to prove that you mean what you say when you live according to those promises and are faithful to others. Faithfulness is something that can be hard for us to do on our own because the devil desperately wants us to be unfaithful so we discredit who God is. God is the one who teaches us how to be faithful. So why is it so important to be faithful to God and others?

When we are faithful to God, we show Him that he means everything to us. We make Him a priority when we are faithful to Him. When we are faithful to others, we show them that we care about them, and we also show the world who God is. For some people, the only time they see the attributes of God is when they look at a Christian’s life. If they see someone who is unfaithful and breaks promises, then they think that is what the Christian life is about and who God is. Faithfulness to God and others shows how we really feel about God. It proves our words to either be true or it disproves everything we say.

God can teach us how to be faithful if we will let Him. It is not in His nature to be unfaithful. He does not break promises, He does what He says He’s going to do, and He proves His words to be true over and over again. All we have to do is open the Bible and we will see many examples of His faithfulness to man since the beginning of time. If we let His words train us and reign in our hearts, then we will also prove what He said to be true in the Bible.