His Encouragement #63

Good morning, and welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

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Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:

1 John 4:4 (ESV)

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is on the world.

The Spirit of God lives inside us … so, we shouldn’t be afraid of anything the world throws at us.

Easier said than done! At least for me.

I hate fear. I hate it so much. I hate how it steals into my heart and makes it feel like someone is strangling it. I hate how overwhelmed and paralyzed fear makes me feel. And, I hate the sense of powerlessness I feel when fear takes over.

I lived in insane, crazy horror for the first 18 months of my daughter’s life. I was terrified of how bad the labor and delivery went. I was insanely scared of my child being in a NICU. Being surrounded by very sick babies, very scared parents, doctors and nurses who didn’t really know if my kid would survive or not, and all the bells and whistles that exist in a NICU drove me to a level of fear I had NEVER felt before in my life. Add to all that tragedy my own physical struggles, and I had become someone I didn’t even recognize. I had clearly allowed the spirit of the world to take over in my life.

But God!

One day after work, I was listening to a pastor on the radio. Mostly the sermon was background noise as I was preparing dinner for my family, but I can remember very clearly the moment the pastor said, “We are invincible until God calls us back home.” That one statement changed my life. It helped me see that with God’s Spirit inside of me I can overcome anything this world throws at me. I was reminded that the Spirit that lives in me is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. What a life-altering, perspective-changing moment for me.

I still struggle with fear every now and then, but now I know to pause myself, say a prayer to Jesus, and trust the Holy Spirit’s guidance. With the Holy Spirit, I can overcome … and so can you! The Spirit that lives in us is truly GREATER than anything in this world.

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

Jenny @ Author Jenny Lynn

Gina @ Stories by Gina

Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes

If you would like to join us: please contact Trisha or Nicole