Sanctuary is within you.

There is something absolutely beautiful about our sanctuary in God. It is a place where God dwells and a place of safety for us. In the old days, the sanctuary was a physical location, but after we receive salvation through Christ, it is our heart. When God lives in us, we become His sanctuary and He becomes our place of safety.

It sounds strange, that our hearts should be a place of safety. But God is in us and He promises to be our shield and protection. In Him there is peace. In Him we can fear not. He said to give no thought to what we eat or drink or wear. He knows all about that and has a plan. We’re responsible to trust Him so He can work it out.

Find that place of sanctuary. Find Him in your heart and feel His peace and His smile. He loves you so much and waits patiently for you to come hang out with Him. And the more you do, the stronger your connection with Him will grow. You’ll feel greater peace and trust Him even more.

Sanctuary is with you wherever you go. You are just a heartbeat away from safety, peace, and help. And there’s more there as well: wisdom, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control. Everything you need is right there waiting. Go find it.

When I was young, communion used to scare me. Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. (I Cor 11:27) I used to stress about confessing my sins so I would be worthy to take communion. I don’t know what I expected would happen if I wasn’t worthy, but I didn’t want to find out.

As I got older, I began to associate communion with the crucifixion. Any description of the torture of being crucified made me ill. I took communion with a heart full of guilt and pain that Jesus had to suffer that for me.

But today, I take communion with joy. I associate it with Christmas and Easter. It is the reminder of God’s great plan to unite me with Him for eternity. I know about the suffering, but I choose to not dwell on it. The bread and the juice (in my church it’s juice) are elements of salvation and life. It makes me happy because I know that my life in Christ is secure and I can actually have a relationship with God because of His sacrifice. It was not a sacrifice in vain. Because of it, I am reborn and full of destiny. Communion is an act of celebration and gratitude.

God will bless your decisions, so go for it.

Do you require God to tell you every decision you need to make? I’m guessing that you probably don’t get a lot of answsers. I don’t believe that God wants to direct every decision that you make. I think He wants us to be mature believers able to know our own hearts. I believe that we live with a green light unless He decides to make it red.

Since we have the Holy Spirit living in us, we are already influenced by His heart. He gives us ideas and dreams and desires, so He likes it when we want to go after them. Achieving those goals can go a dozen different ways. There’s not a perfect way. God can bless whatever we set out to do. If we are truly going in the wrong direction, He will let us know. We may get counsel or that door just won’t open.

I think there have been far too many dreams that never materialized because people waited for a sign. Instead, we should pursue those dreams and trust God to direct us as we go. Walk in maturity and faith, don’t wait to be handheld at every step. You already have a green light.

God is always good.

God is good. Seriously. He’s really, really good. Bad things happen in the world, and everyone assumes that God is punishing someone or allowing tragedy to happen. It’s an inaccurate assumption, because Jesus gave us all His authority to carry on His gospel. If bad things are happening, it’s because we’ve been lax in using His authority.

God is always good. When tragedy happens, it’s God who heals, saves and delivers. It’s God who sends grace where it’s needed when we call. He’s not directing from heaven so much as waiting to respond to our prayers. We need to be praying for His presence and goodness to be released in the world, otherwise, the bad things will continue to happen.

It’s sad and frustrating when God gets blamed for tragedy, but forgotten otherwise. He is powerful and able to be all that we need Him to be, if we would only turn to Him in faith. Without His protection, yes, tragedy happens, but that is not His plan. His plan is to be our shield and joy, but we have to ask. We miss so much by not asking.

Imagine a world where we all believed His word. Tragedy would be a thing of the past and we’d really see how good God really is.