SAM HONIBALL BLOG

The good news at Christmas is that God didn’t merely attempt to reconcile with us; He actually accomplished it. And in God’s case, He was the one offended and He was the one who initiated forgiveness. You are adopted into his family. FOR GOD, THIS IS BOTH A LEGALLY BINDING ARRANGEMENT AS WELL AS AN EMOTIONAL AND SPIRITUAL BOND. THIS MEANS BY FAITH: YOU ENJOY ALL OF THE RIGHTS OF GOD’S FAMILY—such as unconditional love, absolute forgiveness, and permanent security. YOU ARE HEIR TO HIS KINGDOM—heaven. YOUR OLD LIFE IS COMPLETELY WIPED OUT. All of your past is as if it never happened. YOU ARE NOW PROTECTED BY GOD’S FAMILY NAME. No one can remove you from His family . . . not even yourself. By faith, you have peace with God which gives you the peace of God in your heart. He is saying that you’ve got two choices in life: YOU CAN PRAY OR YOU CAN PANIC. Those are your choices. In every circumstance, YOU CAN WORSHIP OR YOU CAN WORRY. Worry has never solved a single one of your problems. It’s w

You can live life at one of three levels. The SURVIVAL level, the SUCCESS level, or the highest level—the SIGNIFICANCE level. Significance comes from knowing God, knowing His purpose for your life, and then doing it. The two greatest days in a person's life are the day he was born and the day he finds out why he was born. The first step to living a life of Significance is to receive Christ as your Savior. What would it take to convince you that you need to be saved? What would motivate you? As your substitute, here is what Jesus did for you: JESUS TOOK ALL OF YOUR SIN—PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE; AND HE MADE YOUR SIN HIS SIN. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV) God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Not only did He take your sin on Himself; He took your punishment, too. HE WAS PUNISHED AND SUFFERED IN OUR PLACE. Isaiah 53:5 (NIV) He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought u

LUKE 2:10 (NIV) BUT THE ANGEL SAID TO THEM, "DO NOT BE AFRAID. I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY THAT WILL BE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE. Notice what the angel said: · “I bring you good news…” · This news will bring you “great joy” · And this news is for all the people, not just some of them. God did not just visit us; He was born as we are. God became a man—a man named Jesus. May I ask you this, do you adore this man? Do you regard with the utmost love, respect and honor this man who is God’s gift of love to you? Do you know that you can never do enough to make Him love you more and you can never do anything which will make Him love you less? I don’t know what you are living with today. Perhaps Christmas is not a time of celebration for you. It might even be a time you dread, and you are just waiting for December 25th to get over with. God says, “I’m going to give you hope.” If you’re mistreated or lonely this Christmas, you need to turn to Jesus Christ and sense His relationship in you

God wants to recycle the pain in your life for the benefit of others. People are not helped by our strengths; they are helped when we are honest about our weaknesses. The blessing of pain is that it gets our attention and lets us know something is seriously wrong. Do you remember the story of Jonah being swallowed by the fish? Jonah was going one way and God said: I want you to go the other way. At The bottom of the sea Jonah finally said, “When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord.” A great verse to show that God uses pain to get our attention. You will never know that God is all you need until God is all you’ve got. When it’s all falling apart and you’ve lost it all, that’s when you can see clearly the only One who is remaining beside you. Without problems you will never learn that God is the only real problem solver. God uses pain to teach you to depend on Him, The truth is some things we only learn through pain. Pain actually makes you humble, sympathetic

This time of year it’s good to do an annual checkup. This inventory is like spring cleaning. You take some time off, go away for a day and do an annual checkup. You look at your life and see what is in order and what not and then do some deep cleaning. Here are some things to review: o YOUR RELATIONSHIPS o YOUR PRIORITIES o YOUR ATTITUDE o YOUR INTEGRITY o YOUR MIND o YOUR BODY o YOUR FAMILY o YOUR CHURCH To maintain momentum the next step that follows evaluation is meditation. Meditation may be a new concept but it isn’t hard at all. Here are two simple keys to get you started on meditation. THE HOW-TO OF MEDITATION: REVERSE WORRY – If you know how to worry you know how to meditate. Worry is just negative meditation – you take a negative thought and you think about it over and over. When you meditate – take a positive thought (often a verse of the Bible) and think about it over and over. LISTENING – Meditation is a form of listening to God for His answers and directions. It’s a time f