Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

The times are perilous and dark storms lay before us.  Troubling is what we see.  How do we respond to this?  What of the night coming?  With the Truth of God within and being strengthened by His Holy Spirit releasing meaning of His Word within us, we cling to the gifts we have been given. The gift of God’s Holy Word Jesus Christ and the gift of His Holy Word the scriptures, both within us.  We are loving and humble, knowing the reason we stand in faith.  Yet we are dangerous snarling lions with fangs bared when the enemy attacks our faith.  We guard the prize that the Lord God has given to His own.  That is our greatest possession, the salvation of God given to us by God Himself. Having the salvation of God, we know that God is good all the time and all the time God is good and we know that God loves us.  These things we hold fast and guard above all else.  We are fierce in the Spirit, and also deep down in our souls, to guard these things so that when trials come, be what comes an inconvenient rain or or the fiercest hurricane, what is most precious to us is safe and guarded.  If we lose everything else, we cling to our God and the knowledge that He is good all the time and all the time He is good, and that HE LOVES US!  Having done that, though ravaged by this world, peace will reign in our hearts.  Having guarded our precious pearl, a song remains in our heart and a smile deep down in our souls. Like saints of old, though the worst come, we have the Best within, and the Best that we have, we cannot lose!  He has promised to hold us tight!

36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”