His Encouragement #68

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 5:5 (ESV)

Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This world drives me crazy. And, it scares me a lot.

My number one frustration is prideful ignorance. I hate it SO much. Prideful ignorance is when humans blindly submit to insane world views they “think” they understand but don’t, and then when given verifiable FACT that proves their world views incorrect or corrupt, turn into screaming, screeching angry mobsters. These people scare me not just because their ideologies are basically evil, but because of the blind anger and hatred that consumes them. I am afraid of their knee-jerk reactions. These reactions often lead to violence. I am afraid of their violence.

I read my Bible every day because I am weak. I need the constant reminder that God is the Boss. He is not shocked by anything happening in this crazy world, and nothing is out of His control. If I don’t have this reminder daily, I can become paralyzed with fear. I can succumb to my feelings, and that is never a good thing. God and His Word keep me real. God helps me separate the wheat from the chaff in this world. And, He helps me keep things in perspective. If I did not believe in God, and I saw the things happening in this world today, I would believe the world was falling apart. But because I love Jesus and I read His Word daily, I know the world is actually falling into place.

We all know the exceptionally famous verse, John 16:33:

I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

If you are like me, you’ve come upon this verse and said to yourself, “Yes! Jesus, the Son of God, has overcome the world. This is a fact I can get behind. Makes total sense to me. He’s God’s Son. He is God.” But maybe, if you are like me, you’ve also thought to yourself, but where does that leave me? I’m in this world, and I’m not sure I can overcome it. Sometimes, it seems like all I can ever do is fail. I feel like this a lot actually — like a BIG failure. Especially when my fear creeps in to my heart after I’ve watched the daily news, or when my anger is ignited by prideful ignorance.

1 John 5:5 encourages me because it gives me the answer to overcoming the world. Overcoming the world sounds like a HUGE endeavor I’ll never be able to accomplish. I’m not Jesus. But in reality it’s not huge at all. All anyone has to do to overcome the world is BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD. I don’t know about you, but that took a ginormous load off of my shoulders. I can do that.

I do believe, with EVERY fiber of my being, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Jesus humbled Himself, became a human, ministered on earth for 3-ish years, willingly sacrificed Himself for His people, defeated Death, resurrected, sent His Spirit to be a Helper to His people, and is currently in Heaven preparing rooms in His Father’s House for His Bride.

Do you believe this today? Because if you do, then you have overcome this world too!

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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