_{"We carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." (2 Corinthians 4:10 HCSB)}

_{When we confess our belief in Jesus as the Holy One of God, we often assume our lives will become easier. It doesn’t help that some pulpits and small groups teach that.}

_{Certainly Jesus taught that his yoke is easy (Matthew 11:30) and the apostle Paul spoke about the "Sabbath rest" of God (Hebrews 4:9), but both these examples teach the need to develop a deep trust in God, not that following Jesus is easy. We’re to step into the will of God and stay there, trusting he has our best interests at heart. (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28)}

_{With God’s Spirit working in us and through us – as we rest in God’s arms – we find we can do all things through him who strengthens us. (Philippians 4:13 HCSB).}

_{Yet the deeper we head into God’s heart, the more difficult things are likely to become, as God builds within us a Jesus-like character. You may have heard it said, “We want to be saints without living the lives of saints.” We want to make a significant contribution to the kingdom of God, yet we want to sidestep the trials Paul experienced: “Pressured in every way but not crushed … perplexed but not in despair … persecuted but not abandoned … struck down but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 HCSB). God_bless you all. Keep the Faith!! Prayerwarrior}

Morning Thomas,

   Good info for this morning. Didn't Jesus tell us to "take up thy cross and follow me" ? Kinda tells us to get ready for a few hardships wouldn't you think?

 Thanks for the reminders.

BLessings

Valerie Clavin

Hugs = Priceless

_{Yes Val, if your serious Christian , you will take up your cross, also you have to count the cost too (no money pun intended lol) but we all have our own path to walk? Im just giving you part of my life as there reflected in my threads . Keep that Faith and God will show you where your heart lies my friends :) Thanks for the love Val :) God_bless you. Spring is here woo whooo!!}

Another thing we might take into account is that when we start to get closer to the Lord, the devil feels threatened and will start to throw out all kinds of temptations and obstacles in our path to try to get us off the path to salvation. I think every new christian should be aware of this and know that we need to spend more time on our knees and ask for even more strength to fight the firy darts.

I believe this was meant as an example for us when Jesus started his ministry when he went into the wilderness and was tempted by satan to turn the rocks into bread. We will have hardships to face and we have to remain strong against his whiles. He will work even harder to break us away and if we're not leaning on the Lord for his strength we're likely to fall away and have a much greater struggle to come back home again. We need to learn to literrally COMMAND satan to leave us alone in the name of Jesus. We have the power to do this just as Jesus did and we need to learn to tap into this power when we need it the most.

Becky

_{Stay strong in your faith faithful friend Becky! God is with you so who can be against you? its up to you to make that choice as Jesus gave us all freedom in Christ to choose who we bow down to. I think Revelations 3:14 is attest to that.  Thanks Becky for the comments and the love!:) God_bless you}