When you come to know God through faith in Jesus Christ and reading His word you come to know and trust His power in your life. When disappointment pulls a cloud over your heart, you know God is able to bring you once again to a clear and bright day. When you fail at something you were determined to achieve, you know God is able to move you forward in hope and confidence. Whatever happens, you know God is with you to help you.

When you are certain of His help, you can face anything. When you know God’s power is your strength, you can stand anything. You can fall and not despair because you God will lift you up.

God, who raised Jesus from the dead, can bring you the victory of new life every day. All you need to do is connect with Him through faith in Jesus Christ. Then learn about Him through the reading and mediating on His word, the Bible. Start with Psalm 139. This Psalm celebrates God’s great attributes of all knowledge, all power, of being everywhere at once, of doing righteously for His people.

Masks...we have all worn one at one time or another. Perhaps you are as old as I am and can remember the William Tell Overture introducing the TV program THE LONE RANGER. Maybe you remember ZORRO or the advertizing for the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA where you see the masked phantom. All of these involved masks. But they were physical ones, what about the hidden masks we wear? We all hide behind a mask before our friends and associates. Many even wear masks before family and friends. But the tragic mask is the one we wear before God.

I read that in the Mardi Gras Museum in New Orleans there is a large glass case holding various kinds of masks used in the carnival celebrations over a time span of many years. There’s a printed legend propped inside the case called “The Power of the Mask.” It has this explanation, “A new face and different attire allows a masker to transcend everyday life and construct a new self, an altered psyche.”

But God invites us to do just the opposite. He invites us take off our masks before Him. He wants to see us as we are. He wants us to see ourselves as we are. There is no need to hide who you are in the presence of God. You can be real in front of Him.

What will He do when we are real before Him? If we need forgiveness, He gives it. If we need comfort, it is ours. If it is direction we seek, He shows the way. Are we discouraged? He will encourage us.

Start your relationship with God by receiving His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord today. To learn how click here.

We live in perilous times. Nothing seems stable anymore. All of the old securities no longer seem to offer any security at all. From financial recession, political corruption, theological defection, to moral abandonment everything is shaking. Where can we find security in an insecure world? The answer is in the question. Security cannot be found in this world, only in another. And that other is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 124:8 “Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” What was true in his day is still true today. Our only security is in the name of our God.

And what is His name? His character is so great that no one name can describe Him. The scriptures call Him:

THE GREAT I AM – The God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. As He has helped others in the past, He’ll help us today.

EL SHADDAI – The Almighty God who defends you against every enemy or evil.

JEHOVAH RAPHA – The God who heals our wounds.

JEHOVAH JIERH – He is your provider who cares for all your needs.

JEHOVAH SHALOM – The God who is our total and perfect peace.

JEHOVAH M’KADDESH – He is the one who saves you by His grace in Christ Jesus.

So where can we find security in our insecure world? We can find security only in looking above our world to the very God who created his world and by His power sustains it. Look up to Him today and rest in His security.

Life can deliver a knock-out punch can’t it? Tragedy strikes but you have to be strong. You get the wind knocked out of you. You want to be strong. You want to be brave. You try to be all of this, but all you really can do is cry.

In reality, the more you insist that you are an unshakable mountain of strength, the more likely you are to crumble.

If you really want to be strong for yourself and those around you, you need to direct them, and yourself, to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is your trust in Christ that will bring you strength in times of stress, not anything you can do or own. So go ahead and weep, but also trust Christ to be your strength. Show others how He can be strong for them as well.

Peter wrote 1 Peter 5:7 that we are to “Cast all your anxiety on him (Christ) because he (Christ) cares for you.”

Jesus taught us in Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

In his inimitable way, Yogi Berra said: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!" The renowned poet Robert Frost was a bit more thoughtful: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." God says it most plainly of all: "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil . . . therefore choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:15, 19).

Nowhere in Scripture, or in all the world's literature, are the results of life's choices contrasted more plainly than in the lives of Jacob and his son, Joseph. Jacob was a trickster who always had an angle. He lived most of his life for himself and raised twelve sons who followed suit--except for Joseph, who chose a different, more godly path. Somehow Joseph decided to trust God regardless of his circumstances that, from age 17 to 30, were challenging to say the least. Every day presents choices--forks in the road of life--and we must decide: the way of Jacob or the way of Joseph.

Whatever your circumstances, choose to trust God in the midst of them.

In Psalm 50:15 we read, “call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." One of the great blessings we have when we come to Christ for salvation is the blessing of prayer. In fact, we are told in 1 Peter 5:7 we are to “Cast all your anxiety on him (God) because he cares for you.”
 

When Bill Moyers was a special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson, he was asked to say a prayer at a dinner held at the White House for visiting dignitaries. Moyers began his prayer by speaking softly to God. President Johnson, sitting several seats away at a long table, said, “Speak up, Bill. I can’t hear you.” Moyers stopped in midsentence and without looking up, said, “But Mr. President, I wasn’t addressing you.” No, he was addressing God.

When you pray, talk directly to God. Tell Him just how it is with you. Tell Him how you are and how you want to be. Tell Him how He can help you. Talk to Him from the heart.

When speaking to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, speak clearly, boldly, and expectantly.