Devotional for friends // Devocional para as amigas

Sometimes, I struggle because I stop looking up and start looking around. God is in heaven and also in me. Because I confess that Jesus is the LORD. But we sometimes get swept away by the troubles of our lives. I guess this is normal. Everybody goes through ups and downs in life.  Sometimes, I doubt my faith. When I want things in my timeline, and God doesn’t give me, I think He didn’t listen to me. But I know He always listens. He always answers, too, it might not be the answer I was waiting for. In the Word of God is written that we don’t get what we want because we don’t know how to ask because we ask for selfish reasons (James 4:3). So yes, I have many doubts. But that doesn’t mean I’ll become like a spoiled kid, throw a tantrum, and forget about God just because He didn’t answer me in the way and time I expected.  I must remind myself that I am a mere human, fragile and smoke in the wind. He is the eternal, almighty, all-known one. Who am I to demand God anything? Who do ...

Perseverança: a capacidade de trabalhar em situações mesmo que haja obstáculos ou desafios no caminho Sometimes, when I read the Bible, I feel satisfied and complete. I see no need to add anything else. It is so clear what we are supposed to do. I know nothing in the Bible is easy. That is why we must read it daily to be reminded of what we should be doing and how we should do it.    Sometimes only reading is not enough. You and I need to stop what we are doing and really listen to what those words are saying and what they mean in actual practice. Ask yourself, "How will that word make me a better version of myself?"    People lately claim that they don’t have time to do anything. I wonder what are they doing? Because of what I see, people don’t have time to be with family or friends or rest or take a vacation. So, what exactly are people doing that takes away the time we are supposed to spend with worthy things and spending time with something that will only br...

Can you choose to be   Joyful? (Full of joy) Peaceful? (full of peace) Patient? (full of patience) Kind? (full of kindness) Good? (full of goodness) Faithful? (full of faith) Gentle? (full of gentleness) Generous? (full of generosity) Self-controlled? (totally self-controlled) Can you choose to be like that all the time? To everyone?   What other religion would promise you that? I am not saying that all Christians are like that all the time. No, we are not, unfortunately. However, we are prone to be more successful than others, do you know why?  When Jesus was lifted to the heavens after his resurrection, he promised that a few days later, His Spirit would come to live in us. The Holy Spirit is our helper. When we live a godly life, a prayer life, and are filled with the Holy Spirit, those are the characteristics that should be seen in us—if not all of them, at least most of them.  Would you like to live like that? To treat people like that? Well, I suppose so. ...

Everybody has what looks like a perpetual problem. Most likely, the problem is inside your family.     I can assure you it is a relationship kind of problem. Most of our problems have to do with someone else. I don’t know what you think about that person. But I am sure that you think that you are right and that person is wrong.  Have you read The Sermon on the Mount? It is written in Matthew 5 – 7. The majority of what Jesus is talking about is about relationships.  He started saying that God cares about even the most vulnerable people in the world. He has prepared a special place/reward to those who struggle during their lifetime. We all struggle during our lifetime. We have good seasons and not-so-good seasons. We have abundance and sometimes we are in need.  Today, people need relationships—good, durable ones, relationships in which they can trust the other person. The statistics are horrific. The number of people who are lonely, depressed, and...

  Anxiety   It is a prison. It captures your thoughts and keeps them in a vicious cycle of insecurities and a false “need to know,” as if you could control the things that will happen, but then comes the insecurity because you can’t know the future.    It is a prison.  There is a way out. Instead of believing that you will be able to foresee the future and control all the variables, why not believe in the one who has prepared your future? Knowing that He loves you very much and that everything you will go through will be for the best, even when it doesn’t look like it. Because in the end, He has won all the battles; if you only trust Him, you will have peace, and the future won’t bother you anymore.    Jesus is the Way out of this prison. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” You may think, but I don’t believe in Jesus or in God, and I tell you, but you do believe that anxiety will tell you the future and you will control it, don’t you? Don...