"Is anybody listening?"

We've all asked that question a time or two. It tends to creep in when our faith is waning. When we look at our circumstances, present and future, and forget about the faithfulness we've seen in the past. When we lose sight of the promise and focus on the problem. 

When your faith needs a jump start, do a quick review of God's faithfulness throughout His word and throughout your life and remember that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

It's been said that those who stand for nothing will fall for anything. We can take it a bit further and say that those who don't stand on the right thing, will fall because of anything. If we aren't standing surefooted on the The Truth, we won't have the power of its sure foundation and we'll be sure to fall when tested.

We need to know The Truth; we need to stand firm on The Truth; and, when the time comes, we need to stand for The Truth.

The things we go through are intended to strengthen us and draw us closer to God. Unfortunately, our responses to trials many times prevent this from happening.

Our relationship with Him will determine the outcome. When faced with a trial, will you be found among those who complain, doubt, and flee or will you be among those who draw close and depend on Him?

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." The fear of anything else will have substantially less positive results. 

No description available

Hope is a critical thing to hold on to. Without hope, people fall into despair. What you put you hope in is just as critical as having it. If you put your hope in temporal things, it will come and go as those things can and will. If you put your hope on eternal things, your hope will be anchored and will pull you through any circumstance.

The degree of effort we put toward something is determined by how seriously we take it. There are many things that we don't do as well as we should because we don't take it as seriously as we should. Guarding our hearts may very well be one of them.

What if we took guarding our hearts as seriously as it should be? What if we guarded our hearts as if our lives depended on it? 

To "workout your salvation" carries the idea of constant effort. We are only as healthy, both physically and spiritually, as the effort we put into maintaining our health. We need to regularly, if not constantly, ensure we are maintaining a healthy heart. If not we may find ourselves in a place where we are fulfilling religious requirements instead of maintaining a right relationship.

The last place you want to find out you have a physical heart problem is in the back of an ambulance after it has failed you. By then it is probably a little too late to fix things. 

The last place you want to find out you have a spiritual heart problem is the day you stand before your Savior and find out your heart was not right. That everything you've done, even for Him, was an outward exercise that did not reflect the condition of your heart. 

In both physical and spiritual situations, it is critical to evaluate and keep your heart in check.

Abiding isn't a temporary thing. It doesn't come and go as things in our lives go up and down. To abide, your heart has to be in it. If you heart isn't completely in it, the tendency is to quit as soon as things get tough or don't go your way.