Hello Everyone,
Being able to console each other is one of the most wonderful things to experience in life…
The following is taken from a Joyce Meyer daily devotional for July 5th. It’s a really good reminder that God is able to work all things together for our good when we trust and wait on Him.
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Good From Bad
As you for, you thought evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are this day.
Genesis 50:20
God wants to restore your soul. The closer you get to Him, the more you experience His healing, strengthening, restoring power. He’ll take you back to where your life got off track and make everything right from that moment forward.
Joseph is the classic biblical example of how God takes what was meant for evil against us and works it for our good. In that dramatic scene where Joseph is speaking in Genesis 50:20, he tell his brothers that the evil they meant to do to him (and it was truly evil), God had used for good to save them and their families and hundreds of thousands of others in a time of famine.
In my own life, I cannot truthfully say I am glad I was abused. But through the power of forgiveness and yielding my pain to God, He has healed me and made me a better, stronger, more spiritually powerful and sensitive person. He has restored my soul and driven out the fear and insecurity. I can trust, love, forgive, and live with simplicity in my approach to life because God has restored my soul, and He can do the same thing for you.
If bad things have happened in your life, remember this: Only God can restore your situation. He can bring good from bad.
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Honestly, the longer I (Mark) walk with Jesus, the more He’s showing me that He’s able to turn the sting of hurts I’ve experienced into consolation, compassion, peace, rest and joy. It’s amazing how He’s able to do that in my heart and understanding.
By the way, I heard a more recent account of Joyce talking about the abuse she experienced in her life and she has even thanked God for it, and is glad it happened, because she can now truthfully see that God is using that experience to help bring His loving healing to so many. She would not have had this opportunity (and her life’s work) to share God’s love with others if she’d not been abused and received God’s love, compassion and understanding for others.
God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good. We just need to keep walking with Him and let Him take the time necessary to show us how He can, miraculously, work all things together for our good if we’ll stay in faith and trust Him.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5
What an all-powerful, loving God we have. ☺
God bless,
Mark