Love Louisa...(9Jan08)

Hi everyone,

Sometimes life is just one foot in front of the other in the right direction. If the thought of a New Year doesn't thrill you, don't despair God has a solution in His Word for you. The instructions to help you carry on faithfully to the end are found in 1 Peter from verse 3:

What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have Him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven-and the future starts now! God is keeping a careful watch over us and the future. The day is coming when you'll have it all-life healed and whole.

I know how great that makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this up, it's your faith not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of His victory.

You never saw Him, yet you love Him. You still don't see Him, yet you trust Him-with laughter and singing. Because you keep on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to; total salvation.

Or maybe you'll recognize this version of His promise to you:

Verse 5-For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self- control; and to self-control perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If this makes you groan, rather than encouraging you, let me give you hope!

• Firstly you do win with everything in the end

• God is carefully watching over you to see to it that this will happen and is happening right now

• I can testify that for many years I have been doing as instructed and have suddenly realized that even without realizing it, I have been kept, and He is still keeping me from being ineffective and unproductive

• Also God has ensured that my trust, with laughter and singing, in Him has been restored and has even increased

Sometimes we just have to do what we have to do-but the results make it all worth it.

Psalm 119:32 I'll run the course you lay out for me if you'll just show me how.

Lots of love Louisa