Author: mary

Our goal in this life is to please the Lord. Whatever we do, it should be as a representative of God living to please Him as it says in Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” We should represent God in our actions and words, living to please Him and bring Him honor.

While it can be difficult to please the Lord in our human flesh, it is possible. We live in an earthly body, but we are still a spiritual being, created in the image of God. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 says, “So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.”

We should desire to please Him because of what He has done in our lives. We should look forward to eternity and know that we will be judged according to our actions. We will all stand before the Lord. Live your life as if you are striving to please your Heavenly Father.

There are some people who are not believers because they will not believe in what they cannot see. They only believe by seeing. However, there are many things that we choose to believe in in this life that we cannot see. We cannot see the wind, yet we feel it and know that it is there. We cannot see emotions, but we know that they are real because we see the evidence and effects of them in ourselves and others. We believe in magnetism because we can see what it does, but we cannot see it. Yet, some of us have trouble even believing the spiritual that we cannot see.

2 Corinthians 5:7-8 tells us, “For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.” When we choose to believe in the spiritual, we are choosing to see the invisible and believe the invisible. We put our hope in the unseen, knowing that it is very real. We not only believe, but are confident in who God is and what He has done in our lives. We have our sights set on eternity and our future heavenly bodies instead of what is temporary and earthly.

So what about you? What do you choose to believe? Do you have confidence in who Christ is and what He did on the cross? Do you look forward to eternity or are you stuck in the temporary? God has great things in store for those who choose to follow Him.

Is there anything in this life that you are confident about? Are you confident in your marriage? Your friendships? Your career? Your future? Maybe you are confident in little things like what you will wear, the money you have, or your material belongings. What makes you confident about those things? Everything in this life is temporary. As first John says, it will all pass away. So if we are confident in the things of this world, we place all of our hope in the things that will pass away.

If you instead place your hope and trust in the Lord and His promises, you will have everlasting confidence in the things that really matter. The eternal things. Just as 2 Corinthians 5:6 says, “So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.” Our confidence comes from the Lord. He is our strength when we are weak. Because of Him we have confidence. We have confidence in Him and His Word and what He can do in someone’s life.

When you live your life, let that confidence shine through you so you can live your life for Him. We can trust that He will work in the lives of His people and keep His word.

Everything that God has done for us is in preparation for what He has for us. “God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit,” as 2 Corinthians 5:5 says. The Holy Spirit is proof that God works in our lives and is preparing more for us.

The Holy Spirit is our advocate and our intercessor. He is the middle man between us and God. He has made a way for us to communicate with the Father. This is why the Holy Spirit was sent to live in God’s people. Before Jesus went up to heaven to be with the Father in Acts 1, He said that He was sending the Holy Spirit so that we could be His witnesses. The Holy Spirit was our guarantee that we were meant for more than this world has to offer. We know that He is preparing us for the rest of our lives into eternity. When we became saved, He placed His Spirit inside our hearts so that we could be a testimony for Him. We can spend the rest of our lives living here on earth with the Father and telling others about the joy we have. What a great purpose.

We will know how to speak to others about Him because He is preparing our hearts for that. He uses the Holy Spirit to give us the words to say and when we pray for others, He speaks on our behalf.

God is the ultimate giver of life. There are some wonderful things that man has done and invented, like walking on the moon or creating 21st century communication, but we will never be able to accomplish what only God can do: create and give life. In this world today we see how desperately man wants to explain creation without God and how he wants to do the things that God can do, but it is impossible. Only God can do what God can do.

2 Corinthians 5:4 says, “While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.” As Christians, we tend to long for eternity in heaven. Sometimes it is because of the troubles we face in this life and other times it is because of the closeness we feel to God. We know that He is the giver of life. He gives and takes away. He is the only explanation for all things. So while we’re here on this earth, we can live a life for Him, put on the things of God since we are a new creation, and carry the gospel message wherever we go.

We can be the evidence of God, the work of His hands. We can show the world how real He is by the way that we live and act. We can be His living miracles by sharing our testimonies of what He has done in our lives.