Author: Phil Rehberg

Weekly words of encouragement

God Is With You – Weekly Words Of Encouragement

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If I go up to heaven, you are there;if I go down to the grave, you are there.If I ride the wings of the morning,if I dwell by the farthest oceans,even there your hand will guide me,and your strength will support me. Psalms 139:8-10 (NIV) No matter what situation we are in, Yahweh is there with us. It may feel like he isn’t there, and we may be unable to see his influence because of all the distress, but he is with us and supports us. No matter how high from the earth we travel, even to another galaxy, he is there. Even if we descend to the place of the dead he is there. If we were to ride the morning sunbeams to the far east, he would be there. If we moved far west beyond the ocean, he would be there. We prefer to see things with our Continue Reading →

anxiety

Anxiety Awareness Helps Us Develop Faith

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Anxiety is epidemic in many societies; faith is the antidote to anxiety. When we connect to God’s reality all other circumstances lose their control over us and peace guards our hearts. Our faith grows as we become aware of our fears, face them, and disarm them by letting God be in control and trusting him to help us deal with the results. Even when we feel fear we need to choose faith. The recipe for peace is to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7, NIV). Since anxiety is an excellent indicator of weak faith it is helpful to develop the habit of becoming aware of our anxieties then learning to defeat the unbelief behind them. Below is an exercise to develop this habit. Guide to Anxiety Awareness For one week make a written note every time you feel anxious about something. Some Continue Reading →

Weekly words of encouragement

Yahweh Will Fulfill His Purpose For You – Weekly Words Of Encouragement

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The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Psalms 138:8 (ESV) It is natural to wonder if everything will turn out okay for us. It is natural to wonder if God has a purpose for us. It is natural to wonder if we will succeed in cooperating with God’s purpose for us. The Psalmist is confident that Yahweh will fulfill his purpose for him because Yahweh’s love endures forever. The same is true for you. He has a purpose for you and he will fulfill it because he loves you. His highest purpose for us is to become Christlike so that we can be united with God in love through Christ. If we endure in faith to the end then we will become like him when we see Christ as he is (1 John 3:2). His specific purpose for your life may be unknown Continue Reading →

smartphone cellphone addiction

Smartphone Overuse & Addiction

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One of the marks of Christian maturity is an awareness of one’s destructive habits and the commitment to overcoming them. In this age we have many opportunities to develop bad habits, some of which don’t seem so bad because they just consume time. But in everything we do it is important to ask ourselves if we are abiding in Christ and walking in the Spirit. In other words, is this habit compatible with following Jesus? Is it healthy for our souls? Smartphone overuse has become a very common habit that harms our spiritual growth and interferes with our participation in the goodness of God. Addiction is a word that is probably overused so I do not know if constantly using one’s smartphone is always an addiction or just a harmful habit. But the general idea of an addiction is that it interferes with a normal healthy life. It is certainly Continue Reading →

Weekly words of encouragement

God Regards The Lowly – Weekly Words Of Encouragement

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For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly,but the haughty he knows from afar. Psalms 138:6 (ESV) In January 1936 England’s King George V died and his son Edward the Duke of Windsor was proclaimed king of England. Unknown to the public, he had become romantically involved with an American woman named Willis Warfield Simpson. She had already been divorced from an American Navy pilot and was in the process of separating from her husband Ernest Simpson, an American businessman. When she filed for divorce later in 1936 with the intent of marrying King Edward the news hit the British press which scandalized the British public. The press, the public, the Church of England and most politicians opposed the marriage. A twice-divorced American commoner was not a proper Queen for England. Edward tried to find a way to appease the public but could not succeed. On December 10, Continue Reading →