Focus on what your Heavenly Father does

Your heavenly Father isn't trying to catch up the devil; it's the other way around. It's the devil that is trying to catch up your Father! There is no contest between them. Jesus already won!

What do I mean? We usually think that when we have problems, our heavenly Father has to do something to solve the situation, that's to say, that the devil attacked first and then your Father comes to solve the problem, but I think it's the other way around. It's your heavenly Father the one that is already doing something to bless you and the devil is trying that you don't receive it, and that's why he attacks!

Those problems just are the devil's attempts for you to not receive what your heavenly Father is doing for you.

Your Father isn't with arms crossed seeing how you go through trials and waiting for you to ask Him for help so He just start doing something about it. Not so! He has started doing something even before the foundation of the earth and has finished all with Jesus, and it is the devil the one trying to lie to you so you don't take the blessings that belongs to you.

So that, when you go through many trials, take them as a sign of the devil's desperation that tries to do something so you don't receive what your Father has already sent. Don't be discourage looking only the problems, because that's exactly what the devil wants. Many times we focus more on what the devil does than on what our Father does, and that's why we get discourage and don't take our blessings.

When Jesus was born, the devil tried to do something to kill him (Matthew 2:16-18). The same happened when Moses was born (Exodus 1:22). For the people back then, that time was the darkest, and because of their discouragement, they didn't see the blessing that'd been born, and that already was among them.

I encourage you to open your eyes and see what your heavenly Father is doing. All those trials, many of them inexplicable, are just the devil's attempts to get you discourage, to get you think that your Father hasn't done anything, that He's forgotten you, so that you decide not to take what's yours.

When the Bible says that the earth is filled with His glory (Isaiah 6:3), or that He loads us with blessings that each day (Psalms 68:19), or that you're already blessed in Jesus (Ephesians 1:3), isn't a lie so you may feel better, nor a motivational trick so you may see the glass half full instead half empty. It is the truth!

Be strong and courageous and dare to look only at what your heavenly Father is doing, and you'll see that you'll get encourage, you'll start to see what He's doing and you'll note the opportunities and blessings where you hasn't seen them before!

Hope this may blessed you! 😀

The best moment to destroy your enemy

We all have fought (or we're currently fighting) against a worst enemy: an addiction, sicknesses caused by wrong-feedind habits, marriage problems, financial problems, etc. For many of us, it was very difficult to overcome it; others, sadly they're still fighting. But all of us have committed this mistake: we've let our enemy to grow.

Our enemy hasn't always been so strong. For most of us, there was a time when this enemy was weak, and because of we thought that is was harmless, we let it live with us and we let it grow. It was then that:
- "It was just a try, everything will be fine!", turned into stealing your own family to by drugs.
- "I don't have to tell my wife everyday that I love her, we are very happy this way!", became into an unbearable marriage situation caused by indifference.
- "We're just taking, besides she needs my help, my wife will understand", turned into adultery.
There are many example of this.

Psalms 137:9 says: "Happy is the one that seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks". It is for sure that the psalmist claimed this hard-to-hear words at seeing the atrocities that Babylon did to his people when they captured them and took them into captivity, but the Holy Spirit let them recorded in order to take advice from it. What is the advice? The best moment to get rid of your enemy is when he is small, that's to say, when you are still stronger.

Now, in this moment of your life, maybe you are living with your worst enemy, but he is still "a child", he's small, you are still stronger. Maybe you've already recognize him, but you're underestimating him, or maybe other people close to you recognized him, but you're not listen to them, you think that they're exaggerating. Do yourself a favor and get rid of your enemy now that you can! Do not let him become stronger! Attack him and destroy him completely once and for all! Because if you don't do it, your enemy will grow stronger, and he will destroy you.

Hope it helped you =)

One proof that God is real

There are people that simply are determined not to believe in God even before you say something to them. Can I give you a piece of advice? Stop trying. Remember that Jesus taught us that the way that they may glorify our Father is by seeing your good works (Matthew 5:14-16, John 13:35), and not by "convincing their minds." Besides, be honest, trying to win when you're arguing many times it turns more into a personal pride issue than a really passion to see that person deciding to believe in God.

A few years ago, I had the chance to talk to a jail director, who was in charge of a penitentiary center wherein different forms to re-socialize the inmate were tried. This man had a sincere desire to help those men, and this drove him to try different ways to get results. The big problem he faced was that the best methods psychologists and psychiatrists had (he himself was a nationally rewarded psychologist) took too much time to show results, if there was any.

On one occasion, thinking about this in his office at the jail, he saw through the window a well-dressed, big-smile, smelling-good inmate walking by holding a Bible with his hand. The director was surprised because he knew this inmate. Less than two weeks ago he saw him completely different, he was one of those than nobody would give a penny for him, consumed by drugs, naked, he looked like a dead living man, abandoned in the trash because not even his fellow inmate wanted him. "How did he dramatically changed in just two weeks?", the surprised director wondered. So, no need to think it twice, the director decided to follow this man, and he was greatly surprised to see that that man was going to a church inside the penitentiary.

"This is it!", he exclaimed. "This exactly what was missing!" Without wasting time he call several Christian churches to a meeting so he could start practicing what he called "the God's factor." In that meeting, he said to us: "I now know the cure, but I don't know how to apply it. That's why I need you."

What, then, is the proof that God is real? Lives changed by Him. What it would take years for men, only in the case that there is any hope, God does in a short time. Restored marriages, changed lives, saved children, miracles, the sick being healed, the fact that we can say: "before I was like that, now I am different", joy and peace in the middle of problems, etc., all of that are things that we experienced and that are palpable to us.

Maybe one testimony is not enough for someone to believe, but what about if he hears ten, or one hundred, or one thousand testimonies? That's why, more than just words, your changed life is what others need to believe so that they may glorify our Father (Matthew 5:14-16)

"I will praise, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will tell of all your marvelous works" (Psalm 9:1). What your Heavenly Father did for you is the best marvelous work that need to be told!

Do problems strengthen you?

I personally think that problems don't strengthen you, and in this post I want to explain why.

If problems strengthened people, all of us that go through problems would be strengthened because of them. But, as you already may know, it doesn't happen that all the time. In fact, in most cases it happens exactly the opposite: people end up stressed, worried, depressed, etc.

"But I know this guy that came out strengthened out a big problem", you might think. It is a mistake to make general rules from particular cases, even if there are many cases of the same point. I could also say: "But I know this guy that came out completely devastated out a big problem", and we can fall into an endless argumentation to know who is right, when the error resides in miss-focussing the reasoning.

"The problem by itself does not destroy you nor lift you up, it just reveals what is inside of you" (Dr Edwin Louis Cole). Your decisions are based on what is inside of you.
- If you've been filling yourself up with negativism, laziness, lack of preparation, bad examples, etc., it is almost for sure that when you go through a trial you will get discouraged, frustrated, full of fear, or something similar.
- But if you've been filling yourself up with positivism, discipline, preparation, good examples, etc., it's almost for sure that when you go through a problem you will not quit, you will look for good advices, you will feel challenged, or something similar.

The problem just REVEALED what there was inside of you.

You allow what enter inside of you.

As christian, I am not agree to those that say things like: "God made me go through this problem in order for me to learn this." They think that it was God the one that made them go through a problem so that they may learn something from it or they may be strengthened by it. Biblically speaking, God does not send problems to anybody. They are already there: sometimes other people cause them, sometimes we ourselves cause them and sometimes they are there because we just allowed them to be there. What your heavenly Father does, instead, is to help you to prevent them or to get you out of them.

"Ok., God didn't send me that problem neither made me go through it, but He did use it so that His Word may be applied." Not true either. God doesn't use problems so that you may apply His Word. On the contrary, He has prepared you before hand with His Word and His presence. These two, His Word and His presence, are the only two ways in the Bible that our Father uses to teach us something.

You can be taught by your Heavenly Father directly or indirectly. It is directly when you yourself are studying the Bible, reading books, listening to teachings, and also seeking His Presence, and it's indirectly when you're being influenced by other source: a friend, a relative, a testimony, etc., which it is just the Word of God made flesh in other person, the Word in action, the Word working, but it's still the Word of God.

"He trains my hands for battle" (Psalm 18:34). Your heavenly Father is the one that gets you ready for battle, He is not the one that prepares the battle. Many battles in the Old Testament were already there; fighting them was inevitable to take to promise land. That's to say, if you want to take your promise land, battles will be inevitable, they weren't send by you heavenly Father; they were already there. But your Father will help you to overcome them!

Other people say: "If you ask God for patience, He sends you a problem so that you may obtain patience." Do problems produce patience? No, they don't! Problems do not produce anything at all, neither good things nor bad things. That patience inside of you came by other good things you were filling yourself up with in the past.

It is because of this reasoning that many people thank God for problems, others aren't determined to get out of their problems because they believe they're fulfilling a God's purpose, others are waiting for God's time to get themselves out of them, etc. A wrong believe produces a wrong behavior.

"God didn't send me problems, but He did allowed them for some reason. We must trust Him!" In order for you to trust your heavenly Father, you have to base on what His Word says. Do you find Biblical base that supports that? I'm not talking about two or three verses, but supported teaching from the beginning to the end of the Bible. You know what, you won't find it. Therefore, I recommend you to not believe it. It's not enough that you have heard it from your favorite preachers. You have to see it yourself that is supported by the Bible.

It is different to say that God turns something bad that happen to you into something good from saying that He sent that bad thing and then He turned into something good.

If you decide to believe that your heavenly Father didn't send you the problem you are going through, but He did allow it for some reason which you can't understand now, but you will later, then you will be accepting that problem in your life instead of fighting it. Remember this: God does not give you weapons so that you fight the enemies He sends you nor the ones He allows. Someone may think: Wouldn't be much better that He just doesn't send any problem in the first place!

If you're going to a problem, you have to know that your heavenly Father did not send it; instead, He will strengthen you, help you and guide you to come through victoriously from it. Do not say again: "If it hasn't been for this problem, I wouldn't obtained that blessing." Rather you say: "If it hasn't been that my Heavenly Father helped me in the middle of that problem, I wouldn't obtained that blessing."

I hope it helped you!