God’s Loving-kindness Never Fails

Isaiah 54:10 New King James Version (NKJV)

10 For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”
Says the Lord, who has mercy on you.

Prayer: (pray out loud)

Thank you, Lord, that You will never remove Your kindness from me. When I come to You, I can be assured that You will welcome me with open arms and that You delight each time that I turn my heart to You in prayer. It’s hard to imagine that You, in all of Your splendor and glory delight in me. I don’t understand it Lord, but I’m so grateful that You do.

As long as I can look on the horizon and see the hills, I know that You are still loving me – even when I fail You. Your promise of peace will never be removed; it’s settled in Heaven – You LOVE me! I can look to the hills and smile, remembering that all of Your thoughts toward me are good and merciful and kind – for the very hills and mountains would be removed before you would remove Your covenant of kindness, and even then, You would not. Thank You Heavenly Father!…in Jesus’ name.

Declaration: (say out loud)

My Father is not, nor ever will be mad at me; His kindness shall never depart from me. He has promised that there will always be peace between Him and me. He is merciful and I am assured through this Word that He loves me and that all of His thoughts toward me are kind and merciful. Every hill that I see is a reminder that He still LOVES me. I agree with the Word; it is so…in Jesus’ name!

©2020 Sandra Briggs All Rights Reserved

Simply “To Be”

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Ps. 118:24

Life’s simple pleasures

Truly are the best

Looking out my window

I spotted a robin red-breast

He seemed so contented

Perched there on the limb

I couldn’t help

But learn a lesson from him

He didn’t appear hurried

Or worried like you and me

But his only purpose it seemed

Was simply “to be”

Our Father has given us life

And a fresh new day

I think our greatest purpose

Is just to ‘stay’

Close by His side

And let go of our care

Loving and enjoying Him

For He’s always there

No matter the day

Whether rainy, sunny or mild

Our hearts should REJOICE

Simply “to be” His child!

©2020 Sandra Briggs All Rights Reserved

In Feathered Shroud

No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.

In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Ps. 91:10-12

How confidently may we

Trust in a God

Who carefully watches

Each path we trod

Lest we should fall

Into harmful things

He bears us up

On downy, white wings

There’s no need to fear evil

Whatever it’s form

The pestilence, the plague

Nor violent storm

He’s given His angels charge

To keep us as we go

Safe in a feathered shroud

Glistening like snow

They are dispatched

From the heavens above

To protect and keep

The children of His love

©2020 Sandra Briggs All Rights Reserved

He’ll Be There

When you pass through the waters, I will

Be with you; and through the rivers, they

Shall not overflow you. When you walk

Through the fire, you shall not be burned,

Nor shall the flame scorch you. Isa. 43:2

We were never promised

A life of ease

Good days and bad days –

Life is made up of these

But we’ve been given

A promise to cling to

The Word of our Father

To never leave me or you

He will be there

When the water’s rising higher

And He’ll still be there

In the raging fire

He’s commanded the waters

To stand in place

And said to the flame

“You will leave no trace”

So, take comfort

In your momentary despair

For you are coming out

And no worse for the wear

Rainy days will come –

We’ll all have a few

But our Father promises

To be there when they do

©2020 Sandra Briggs All Rights Reserved

In the Shadow of His Wings

I meditate on You in the night watches

Because You have been my help.

Therefore, in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.

My soul follows close behind You;

Your right hand upholds me.  Ps. 63:6-8

I slide underneath the blankets

And turn out the light

Another day has passed

Ushered away by the night

I will think of You Lord

And how good You’ve been

In Your grace and faithfulness

You’ve blessed me again

You have been my help

Throughout another day

I have such peace in knowing

That You’ll never go away

You uphold me when I stumble

And forgive me when I do

It’s no mystery or puzzle

That my heart belongs to You

I meditate on Your forever love

And my soul rejoices and sings

As I lay me down to sleep

Underneath Your mighty wings

©2020 Sandra Briggs All Rights Reserved

You Can Have it All and You Can Have it NOW

Romans 5:1-2 (KJV) Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

The Lord has already given us everything we need to live a successful life. Eph. 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

But…what does this mean exactly?

Gal. 5:22-23 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit (that we have already received) is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Let me ask you a question, as a Christian, are you currently experiencing a life of love, joy, peace, etc.?

Even though Paul the Apostle tells us that we HAVE been blessed with all these spiritual blessings at our spiritual birth, that does not necessarily mean that we automatically experience these in our personal reality. Many times, my attitude is not one of love, joy seems far away and often my promised present of peace is anything but my present state of mind. And kindness…let’s not even go there!

So, where have we gone wrong? We know the Bible is Truth, so the problem is with us. Obviously, WE have not learned to ‘walk out’ the promises in our lives. And the reason is that we are showing up for life every morning without our armor on (Eph. 6:11). The Christian life is a battle from day one. Too many of us believe that once you say the prayer of salvation, that’s it; we are now a child of God, everything is supposed to fall into place. The truth is, you just showed up on Satan’s radar and he’s not going to make it easy for you.

Our battle is spiritual and therefore, our weapons must be spiritual as well (2 Cor. 10:4-5). Our spiritual weapons are: Truth (the Word of God), Faith (believing the Word of God), and our own Tongues (speaking the Truth, Mark 11:23).

This battle takes place in the spiritual realm, where everything spiritual resides. And FAITH is the ACCESSOR of all those spiritual blessings that are already provided by God’s Grace in the spiritual realm (Rom. 5:1-2, ref. above).

Now, Satan tries to defeat us through building strongholds in our minds… strongholds of ‘untruths’ (lies). 2 Cor. 10:4-5 tells us that the weapons of our (spiritual) warfare are mighty to pull down those strongholds that Satan has erected in our minds (the lies, that he’s convinced us to believe, for instance, that we will never, in reality, effectively live the abundant life).

The truth is that God has already given us all the spiritual blessings that we need to live a successful life (Ref. Eph. 1:3 above and 2 Pet. 1:3 “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness“). But, these ‘things’ are residing in the realm of God’s grace and it is by faith that we must reach into the spiritual realm, by our heart belief and our words to lay hold of them – everything comes from the spiritual world into the tangible world by our faith and words!

So, I make my declaration: “Today, I reach into the realm of God’s Grace (by faith) and I lay claim to the love, the joy, and the peace that I already have in my possession through the Spirit of God Who lives inside of me. And by my confession, I cast down all the spirits and attitudes of discontent, of worry, and of defeat. I command all critical and negative attitudes to “Go” in Jesus’ name. I will not live a life of futility, but I will be fruitful in all things that pertain to the ABUNDANT LIFE that Jesus died to provide…in Jesus’ precious name!”

When our world doesn’t line up with what the Word of God tells us we have, then we need to reach out with faith-filled Words of Truth and draw those promises to us from the heavenly realms into our earthly reality.

This morning, I got up battling depression and discontent. But this was simply a lie devised by Satan. How do I know that? …because the Bible says that I have been given the joy of the Lord and that I have an abundant life through Jesus (John 10:10). I made the mistake of listening to the wrong voice and I was living from my feelings, rather than my spirit. In my spirit, I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing that I need for each day and for every circumstance I face. So, I cast Satan’s lies down and (by faith and words of Truth) traded my depression and negative feelings for the beautiful and blessed day that Jesus has already provided for me in the realm of His grace.   

I hope my title is not offensive to anyone… all similarities to the song by Queen “I Want it All” was entirely intentional. I could not help myself. I prayed and asked the Lord what to name this blog and that was the next thing that popped into my mind so I went with it. (Don’t tell me the Holy Spirit doesn’t have a sense of humor. Ha!)

Tomorrow’s Outlook – Lots of Sunshine and Grace

Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV) For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

This is easily one of my favorite Bible verses. Just imagine… in this verse, God is revealing His heart and His desires for us. Far too often, we assume that God is mad at us (usually we are not even sure why, but we are convinced that we have done something worthy of His wrath).

Until recently, I was unable to fathom that God could be truly pleased with me. I have learned that I must choose to believe that He has made me totally righteous in Christ before I could simply relax and dare to imagine that God was ‘smiling’ rather than ‘smirking’ down on me.  

However, now that I know that I am undeniably, unequivocally accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1:6), my life has changed dramatically. I now truly believe that God has good things for me; His thoughts about me are for peace; He has my whole future planned out; I don’t have to worry about tomorrow, God is planning it for me and He says it’s a good one, full of hope.

Today, won’t you simply take the gift that God has offered us through Christ – His own righteousness. We can never FEEL right with God unless we understand that Christ died in order to make us completely accepted in the Beloved. It’s not because we are doing everything right, but it’s because He’s already done what we never could (lived the perfect life) and He offers us His perfect life in exchange for all our failures. And all we have to do is accept that precious gift by faith.

According to Jeremiah 29:11, we have an awesome and bright future, but that’s not all; when you truly believe that God is pleased with you in the here and now, it makes for an equally awesome, bright and peaceful present.

Okay, time for your homework assignment… stand in front of a mirror and say, “I am accepted in the Beloved; God thinks good thoughts about me; He is pleased with me; I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow holds – because the same God Who created the universe is planning my future and He says it’s a good one.” 

I placed a picture of a pair of sunglasses on the frig to remind myself each day just how bright my future is.

We have Options!

Mark 5:36 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.

The lab test came back positive for yet another autoimmune disease. I had been diagnosed in February, 1999 with SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus). And now it seemed I would have to battle an even more serious illness in addition to the SLE, which I might add was quite enough to manage all by itself.

I had read about all the symptoms of this newly diagnosed disease and the prognosis wasn’t very pleasant to say the least.

The house was so quiet that Sunday afternoon when my mind began to race – I, of course, imagined the worst possible scenarios. I paced the floors. My heart began to pound as the onslaught of worries and fears took over my thoughts.

I began to cry out to God… I remember saying, “Lord, I just need a word from You. Just one word from You can change everything.” Well, He gave me two words. “Fear not!”

Now, you may be thinking how in the world can you just turn fear off like that? If it couldn’t be done, then Jesus would not have commanded us to “Fear not!” on so many occasions in the New Testament.

Surprisingly enough, those two words were enough to calm me down. Every time a worried, fearful thought entered my mind, I would say, “Nope, I’m not fearing that!”  And believe it or not, each time I made a conscience effort to do that, my fear and dread seemed to dissipate into thin air.

How could it possibly be that easy when I thought I was potentially facing the worst physical challenge of my life? Nothing had changed…the lab test was still positive…the prognosis had not improved. So, what made the difference?

I was doing battle with my fears. I was casting down imaginations and bringing my thoughts into the obedience of Christ as 2 Cor. 10:5 commands us to do. It is possible to refuse fear and believe it or not, it must submit. Fear is simply an option, like faith!  We choose fear or we opt out of it by choosing faith instead.

Here’s what I think happens, Satan is constantly offering us fear, or worry, or anger, or bitterness, or lust, etc. They come as thoughts. But we don’t have to accept them by allowing them to STAY and torment our mind. We have the ability to cast those thoughts down and choose to think on Christ-centered, Biblical truths instead. For example, “Jesus wants me to have an abundant life”… “He will never leave me nor forsake me”… “He will cause all things to work out for my good!

Satan is continuously presenting us with negative choices on a daily basis, but you don’t have to TAKE them. We have OPTIONS! Simply because a fear comes to mind doesn’t mean you have to open the door to it. When Satan, the fear salesman, comes knocking don’t purchase his propaganda. Say, “No, I’ll not be buying any of that today!” Send him packing. He can’t force you to take it!  You do not have to invite him in, or even listen to his negative sales pitch. Just say “NO” to him and “YES” to faith-filled meditations from the Word! It will change your outlook and your outcome.

Phil. 4:8 tells us to meditate on or think about things that are lovely and of a GOOD report. Replace those old depressing, fearful, bitter, discouraged views with an abundant-life mentality. Jesus said that He came to give us life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). That abundant life begins or ends with each thought you accept or reject.

I cleaned out my closet and hung all my clothes on a rack. As I went through them one by one, I made a choice. My thought process went sort of like this: “I don’t like that dress anymore; that one looks pretty but it doesn’t look good on me; that one doesn’t fit; this one is too tight and restricts my freedom to move.” FEAR restricts our freedom to move. We engage in this type of self-talk all the time, but often we don’t realize the bad choices we are making to let fear dominate.

Be actively engaged in cleaning out the closet of your mind – throw out the thoughts that make you a victim of fear, lust, bitterness, depression, etc. Just say NO! And then say YES to the abundant life Christ is offering you – You have options!

By the way…the follow-up tests came back negative.

A Little Salt Makes a Big Difference

Matt. 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”

I scooped up a big spoonful of brown beans that had been meticulously slow cooking all day, blew on them until I was sure they were just the right temperature, and offered up this mouthwatering serving of deliciousness to my anxiously awaiting taste buds.

My taste buds have never forgiven nor pardoned me for my culinary mistake to this day. You guess it; I forgot the salt!

Jesus said that ‘we’ are the salt of the earth. As always, Jesus had such a colorful way of describing things; I believe He did this so that we would draw an image in our minds, which makes more of an impact – we remember images better than we remember words. I know that I will never forget the taste of those blah, bland brown beans rolling around in my mouth until I finally choked them down. It made an impact that I have not forgotten.

Jesus used salt to illustrate how we should be the seasoning in our families, our neighborhoods, and everywhere we go. We should seek to enrich every life we touch. I have a friend who is constantly praying, “What can I do for this person Lord?” That’s an amazing testimony.

What is our salt? It’s kindness, mercy, love, charity, compassion, forgiveness, goodness, etc. Adding salt changes the entire flavor of food. Imagine life without salt. Imagine a home without love, without kindness, without forgiveness. Hopefully, every life that we have had the occasion to touch has been left a little better, that our kindness has made hearts a little lighter, and days a little brighter.

However, if we lose our saltiness, we become useless to positively impact the world. Work to STAY kind, compassionate, generous, etc. Saltiness can easily become bitterness when we dwell on negative circumstances in our own lives. Satan would love nothing more than to steal your influence. Take your troubles to the Lord in prayer. He will restore your peace and your joy if you ask Him to. Don’t let the bad in the world change you, YOU change the world for good. Practice these traits so that you will not become a useless, bitter salt has-been.

When the world hands you its worst – take it patiently, wrap it up in love, season it with forgiveness, and hand it back out to others transformed – turn curses into blessings!  Jesus said, “Love your enemies!” (Mark 6:35)

I read a story in Albert Barnes commentary (paraphrased):
In eastern countries, salt may be impure or mingled with vegetable or earthy substances, so that it can lose it saltiness and all that remains is the earthy matter. This salt is good for nothing. It is then used like gravel on paths and walkways.


It is found in the earth in veins or layers, and when exposed to the elements (the sun, rain and air) it loses its saltiness entirely. Scientists broke off a piece of it (the part that had been exposed to the elements) and even though it had the sparkle and particles of salt, it had perfectly lost its flavor. BUT, the inner part, which was directly connected to the rock, retained its flavor.

Ah ha! Did you GET it? The way we STAY salty is to stay connected to the ROCK!  We cannot season anyone else’s life until we ourselves are first seasoned properly. When we are exposed to the harshness of this world, we can lose our zeal. But, spending time with Jesus (Our Rock) transforms and refines the negative environment of our own hearts.

Time with Jesus will keep us salty.  O taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8)

Try everyday to pour out a little seasoning into someone’s life.

Be a salt shaker…!

Imposition or Invitation (1 Kings 17:1-16)

Subject: “FEET”, due date Jan. 24, 2019

This is a story I wrote as an entry in an Writing Contest. Thought I would share it here.

The old prophet’s feet were dirty and bleeding as he sauntered along the pathway. It had been a long journey by foot into Zarephath from the mountains of Jordan. The attractive Sidonian woman stacked another twig of kindling atop her already bulging bundle and watched him navigate his way through the city gate. 

She couldn’t help but notice that the weary wanderer seemed deliberate in his mission. She recognized him as he drew closer.  She had been expecting him. It was Elijah, the Tishbite from Gilead. He was the prophet responsible for the famine in the land – the famine that would surely be the death of her and her young son. She remembered his face clearly from the mysterious dream that could only be explained as ‘divinely inspired’. She had understood the instructions well enough (1 Kings 17:9), but how to carry them out was, well, still a mystery.

Once he was well within earshot, breathlessly he called out to her, “Could I bother you for a drink of water?”

She dropped her bundle of kindling beside the doorway of her small, but well-kept home and made her way to the spring. “And bring me a little bread too, please!” he said almost commandingly.

The widow stopped in her tracks and spun around to face the old prophet. He obviously had no clue who he was talking to. He was supposed to be a prophet, a seer – had he lost all his visionary abilities? Could he not SEE with his prophetic capacities that she had no bread to spare? How dare he ask for her last little bit of food to satisfy his own needs. After all, he was God’s man, why didn’t he call bread down from Heaven or something. Why should she feed a perfect stranger while her own son lay in the house sick and at the point of death from malnourishment (due to a famine that ‘he’ was responsible for in the first place)?

Just as she took a deep breath to let the old prophet have an ear full, she remembered the message of her unusual dream (1 Kings 17:9). She bit her lip and calmly composed herself enough to explain the situation.

“I only have a handful of flour left in the whole house. I and my son are at the point of starvation. I have been saving it to bake one last meal for us. Afterward, well… I guess it doesn’t take a prophet of the Lord to figure that one out!”

1 Kings 17:13-16  

And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’ ”

So, she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.

What the widow first thought had been a self-centered request from the man of God was actually an invitation to partake in the miraculous.

Isaiah 52:7  How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news…

Be mindful that what may seem like an imposition might actually be an invitation to see the miraculous in your own life. Every opportunity for giving is an opportunity for a blessing.

Jan. 23, 2019, Sandra Briggs