Truly Loved + Wholly Surrendered

The next set of the “Do Not Fear” series is the times the Lord gave the command in the midst of different circumstances and situations, whether it be in times of war, or famine, or persecution. There are numerous stories in the Bible where someone was facing fear because of the situation they found themselves in. However, God wants us to walk in His love and be fearless in the face of life’s circumstances, and He gives us the command personally.  If you’re familiar with the story of Israel and the nations, you’ll kno w that God commanded the Israelites to wipe out various pagan nations. During these times of war, and later on, even when different kings had reigned over Israel and Judah, God commanded His people to not fear the impending task in front of them. However, I find it interesting that of these instances, He personally delivers the command. In Numbers 21, Moses was getting ready to cross through the land of the Amorites, but the king wouldn’t allow Israel to pass through t...

Continuing through my series of “ Do Not Fear ,” the next and final set of promises are promises God gave to Israel. As His chosen people, and even in the midst of their rebellion and repentance cycles, He continues to be faithful to this nation. You may already know that God promised Abram that “in [his] seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 22:18, see also Genesis 12 ). God has not forgotten Israel!  The vast majority of the promises I found are in the book of Isaiah, which was written by a prophet who continuously called Israel to repentance, and in the midst, assured them of God’s faithfulness to them, to keep the remnant of Israel. Of these verses, though they specifically apply to Israel as a nation, because the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and is “ useful for teaching, for reproof, for restoration, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16) for all believers , we can find hope in these verses as well because Gentiles are grafted in...

In my last post , I started a series on the instances the Bible says to not fear and how we can walk in peace knowing God’s presence is always with us, no matter where we go. The promises God gave in the Old Testament are not the only promises given. Jesus also promised His disciples they are valued, seen, and chosen—and as His disciples today, we can carry those same truths wherever we go.  We can know we are valued and seen because Jesus says in Luke 12:7, “Indeed, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. ” In this portion of Scripture, Jesus teaches His disciples to be on guard against the Pharisees’ teaching and alludes to the persecution they will face. Since we too will face some sort of persecution and are taught to “ test the spirits ” (1 John 4:1), I believe this can be applied to us as well.  We may or may not face severe persecution, but when we do, we can know the Lord sees us in the midst of it. My pa...

 When I read somewhere that “Do not fear” occurs in the Bible 365 times—once for each day of the year, I wanted to take a look myself and find all those instances. There are not 365 instances, by the way, but there are however a lot of verses where God gives the command to not fear. I want these verses to remind you, and me, that God is always for us, fighting our battles, seeing us in the midst of our circumstances, and through it all, He wants us to trust Him and not be afraid. The verses show the different circumstances people faced in the Bible and in those circumstances, the Lord says, “Do not fear,” or, “Do not be afraid.” I hope you'll find these verses encouraging and applicable to your own life, and that you'll always remember: no matter what is happening in your life or in the lives of those you love, with God on your side, there is nothing to fear. After searching for verses that contained or dealt with the command not to fear, I categorized them...

** I wrote this during quarantine earlier this year, but the Lord reminded me of it recently, and I realized how true this still is. ** You know the phrase, "Satan is a liar," or "Fear is a liar," or something along those lines? I've heard this a lot in my life, growing up in a Christian home and community. Satan is a liar. But, you know, it wasn't until recently, that I realized how much of a liar Satan really is. I was watching a series by Chip Ingram on the " Invisible War, " and he said that Satan's first mechanism of attack is to lie. That's literally how sin entered the world: Satan lied, planted doubt, and Eve took the apple and ate ( Genesis 3:1–13 ). Who's to say he doesn't still do that? No, he does. He continues to lie and plant doubts in the minds of the children of God, and it's up to us on whether or not we want to believe him. I've decided I'm done listening to his lies, and I want to share some of th...

As promised, this post will be about my adventures of New Zealand before I started the missions work. So, I woke up that first morning in Christchurch (the largest city in South Island) at 7 a.m. and my roommate/friend (Brianna) was still sleeping so I took the time to mentally settle in and that's when I realized that I was in a different country, away  from home. Like, far away. And the time difference came as a shock because it was Monday morning for me, but Saturday for my family and friends back home. Eventually, I got used to the time difference, and was able to stay connected with my family at certain times of the day. However, Brianna was right that I was to stay up until it was time to go to bed, New Zealand  time, otherwise, I probably would have woken up earlier, with nothing to do. So, on that Monday, the jet lag wasn't too horrible. I still needed time to adjust though. Brianna woke up shortly after I had a few minutes of peace and quiet in the morning before ...

You'd think that after 2 years of being home from my mission trip I'd be done talking about it. Nope. Haven't really talked about it in the last couple of years, for multiple reasons: I found out my grandmother got sick and stayed sick when I was in New Zealand and it messed with my head more than I thought it would. I was convinced that she'd get better, but she passed shortly after I came home. Dealing with the loss of my grandma and family relationships took a toll on me, not to mention that I had quit my job just before I left. So I was home all the time, which wasn't good for my health and healing. Because I was home all the time after I got back from New Zealand, I had to start looking for a job, one that could use my degree: English. Where could I find such job? To be honest, I didn't really care about looking. But, God provided and I ended up at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association as an intern that summer. When I started my internship, the pre...