Author: lamkhanh

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“The LORD is near to all who call on him.”  Psalm 145:18 (NIV)

God is not as far away as the furthest star. He’s as close as your next heartbeat. He’s right there with you every moment. The Bible says in Acts 17:27, “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (NIV).

You might feel like God is a million miles away. But your feelings and reality don’t always match—we all know that’s true. The truth is, God is with you right now.

Because he is a close Father:

God is never too busy for you. That’s how close he is. That’s the kind of love that he has. Psalm 145:18 says, “The LORD is near to all who call on him” (NIV). Every time you call, God is near. You’re never going to get a busy signal! He thinks about you a lot more than you think about him. He thought about you before you were born. He thinks about you every moment of every day. The truth is that too many times, we get too busy for God. But he never gets too busy for us.

God loves to meet your needs. He doesn’t do it begrudgingly. He loves taking care of his children and giving them the things they didn’t even know they needed. Mathew 7:11 says, “If you . . . know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (NIV). You can enjoy the fact that God enjoys giving good gifts to you.

God is sympathetic to your hurts. Some of you are going through something tough this week, and you need this verse: “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed” (Psalm 34:18 NLT). Whatever is weighing you down, you can give it to God and let him carry it for you. He is always ready to comfort and help you.

God is close to you, and he understands. Turn to him, talk to him, and trust him for every need you have today.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“Let go of your concerns! Then you will know that I am God. I rule the nations. I rule the earth.”  Psalm 46:10 (GW)

Every day, you have to decide who’s going to be in control of your life: you or God.

That choice is a battle. There are things in your life that you want to control. You want to make your own rules. But relieving stress always starts with letting God be God. It starts with saying, “God, only you can control the things that are out of control in my life.”Psalm 46:10 says, “Let go of your concerns! Then you will know that I am God. I rule the nations. I rule the earth” (GW).

I don’t know what you’re going to face this week. You don’t, either. But I can already tell you what God wants you to do: Let go, and know. Let go of control, and know that God is in control. Let go, and know! This is the first step to peace in your life.

Whenever we face out-of-control situations, we tend to go to one of two extremes. For some people, the more out-of-control life gets, the harder they try to control it. Some people do the exact opposite: They just give up! They have a pity party and invite themselves to it.

Both of those reactions to stress are foolish. They don’t work. Instead of being a victim or becoming hyper controlling, you need to surrender your control to God.

The number one reason you’re under stress is because you’re in conflict with God. You’re trying to control things that only God can control. The more you do it, the more you’re trying to play God, and that puts you in opposition to God. Not only are you going to lose that conflict, but you’re also going to be tired.

Millions of people pray the Serenity Prayer, which is based on the Lord’s Prayer, but most have never read the last part of the prayer: “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace; taking as Jesus did this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next. Amen.”

That’s where the power is! There is power when you surrender to God the very things you’ve been trying to take control of from him.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  James 1:17 (NIV)

When everything’s changing around you, it’s important to remember that God is a consistent Father. He will never let you down. He can be counted on. He is reliable. He is worthy of trust.

James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (NIV). God is an unchanging, consistent Father.

Human fathers are often unpredictable. I’ve talked to people who said, “Growing up, I never knew how my dad was going to treat me. I never knew if he was going to be silent or violent. I never knew whether he was going to hug me or slug me. I never knew if he was going to take me in or reject me.” Inconsistent fathers produce insecure children.

But God is not moody. He does not change in his character or his feelings about you. Nothing you could do would make God love you more, and nothing you could do would make God love you less. Your heavenly Father is consistent. One of the things you can count on is that God always acts the same toward you.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (NIV).

We know that the world is changing faster than ever before. Years ago, the futurist, Alvin Toffler, wrote that in times of rapid change, people need “islands of stability.” When everything else is up in the air, you need something in your life that never changes as an anchor for your soul. You need an island of stability in order to handle the stress.

There’s only one problem: On this planet, nothing lasts. There’s only one thing you can count on that will never change, only one thing that will give you permanent stability, and that’s the consistent, caring love of your heavenly Father. As you get to know God and experience his love for you, you’ll find solid footing in a shaky, inconsistent world.

“My God is changeless in his love for me” (Psalm 59:10 TLB).

You can count on that.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.”  Psalm 103:13 (NIV)

God is a caring, loving, and compassionate Father. He loves you more than you will ever understand. He loves you more than you can ever comprehend! God is love, and he made you to love you. He is loving toward you in everything that he does. God is a caring Father.

The Bible says in Psalm 103:13, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him” (NIV). God compassionately cares about everything in your life, which means he has concern for you.

In Mark 4, when the disciples were out fishing one day, Jesus got tired and curled up in one end of the boat and went to sleep. When a storm came up, it shouldn’t have bothered the disciples. As professional fishermen, they were used to storms. But this must have been a big one because they got scared. They were frantic and woke up Jesus to ask him one of the most important questions in life: “Lord, don’t you care?”

We ask that question of God all the time and in a thousand ways:

“God, did you see that doctor’s report? Don’t you care?”

“Do you see what a mess my marriage is in? Don’t you care?”

“Do you see how little money we’ve got in the bank and all the bills we’ve got? Don’t you care?”

“Do you see how my kids are struggling in school? Don’t you care?”

“You know this fear that grips my mind that I can’t seem to get rid of. Don’t you care?”

The answer is yes, God cares. In fact, he cares more than you care. He wants to help more than you want help. He knows what will help you more than you know what will help you. He is aware, and he cares.

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7 NIV).

If you knew and felt how much your heavenly Father cares compassionately and constantly about you, you’d have to love him back. If you feel like God is out of reach, it’s because you don’t understand the kind of caring Father he really is.

You can only know the depth of God’s love for you when you know God. Spend some time with him today—and every day. As you get to know him better, you’ll see just how much he cares.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“The righteous choose their friends carefully.”  Proverbs 12:26 (NIV)

If you’re supposed to choose your friends carefully, you should be even more careful about choosing your life partner. And notice that you do get to choose. God leads, guides, and gives you guidelines. But ultimately, who you marry—and whether you marry—is your choice.

However, many people believe the myth that there is only one right person for them.

That’s romantic, but it’s just not true. It’s not biblical, and it’s not even logical! If there were only one right person for each person in the world, one person making a wrong decision would break the chain for everybody else.

Let’s say I’m supposed to marry a woman named Susan. Instead, I marry Kay. So then, Susan might marry somebody else, who was supposed to marry somebody else, who was supposed to marry another person! Do you see how the apple cart is upset for everyone on the entire planet?

There are many people God would want you not to marry. But there likely are quite a few other options that could fall within his will for your life. And in those cases, it’s your choice. You can follow your preference.

There’s another myth that many people believe: Love alone is reason enough to marry.

I frequently talk with people who are planning to get married. And sometimes I look at them and think, “There’s no way.” The family background, spiritual foundation, or personalities aren’t right. They don’t have the same amount of energy or ambition. They don’t even have the same values and goals. But they “love each other.”

Loving someone does not mean you should marry that person.

God may not tell you who to marry. But he does give you principles that will help you make a wise decision. In tomorrow’s Daily Hope devotional, we’ll go over a list of traits to look for in potential partners.

But first and foremost, if you’re a believer, it’s foundational that you marry another believer so that you have a spiritual unity and a shared life purpose.

There are few gifts in life that are better than a good spouse. Relying on God’s guidance can help you make a wise decision.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.”

1 Timothy 2:5 (NIV)

When you have conflict, focus on reconciliation, not resolution.

There’s a big difference between those two words. Reconciliation means re-establishing the relationship. Resolution means resolving every issue.

In most cases, resolution isn’t going to happen—there are some things you’ll just never agree on.

Can you have a loving relationship without agreeing on everything? Absolutely. But it takes wisdom. When you’re wise, you learn to disagree without being disagreeable; you learn to walk hand in hand without having to see eye to eye.

One of the greatest things you can do with your life is to be a bridge builder, not a wall builder. You are most like Jesus Christ when you are reconciling people. That’s exactly what Jesus came to do! God sent Jesus to earth to reconcile humanity with God.

Jesus is the great reconciler. The Bible says, “There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5 NIV).

But you cannot make peace with other people until you make peace with God. If you find yourself in constant conflict, ask yourself whether you’ve made peace with God. You can make peace with God by repenting of your sins and dedicating your life to serving him (see the prayer below).

The Bible calls Jesus the Prince of Peace. Peace with God leads to peace with yourself, which leads to peace with others. 

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“Now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” Colossians 3:8 (NIV)

You only have a certain amount of emotional energy. When you’re trying to resolve conflict, you can use that energy either to fix the blame or to fix the problem. You don’t have enough energy to do both. So you need to ask yourself what’s more important—to blame the other person or to resolve the conflict.

Choose to fix the problem, not the blame.

When it comes to solving problems, you should decide ahead of time that you’re going to fight fair. Within your marriage or family, set ground rules for words you’ll never use—words that serve as weapons of mass destruction.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had thousands of intercontinental missiles—weapons of mass destruction—aimed at the United States. And the United States had thousands of intercontinental missiles aimed at the Soviet Union too.

But even at the worst, most tension-filled points during the Cold War, both sides still had enough sanity not to use those weapons. It’s been called the MAD strategy; if either side decided to use the weapons, the result would be a “Mutually Assured Destruction.” In effect, the countries were saying, “If you use yours, we’re going to use ours. We’ll destroy each other, and there won’t be any countries left.” So even when we were on opposite sides of an issue, we could at least agree not to use those weapons.

Relationships often have weapons of mass destruction too. When you use those weapons, you fix blame—but you never fix problems. In marriages, for example, those weapons include things like threatening divorce or bringing up each other’s parents. Those are words of mutually assured destruction—they destroy a relationship by tearing down trust.

You have to agree, no matter how upset you are, those words are off limits.

The Bible is very specific about what’s out of bounds in a relationship. Colossians 3:8 says, “Now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips” (NIV).

Those are weapons of mass destruction. They’re used to fix blame. And when you fix blame, you’re judging—and only God has the right to judge.

Instead, set aside destructive weapons and use your energy for what matters. Fix the problem.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”    2 Timothy 1:7 (NLT)

God wants you to live at peace with everyone. Why? Because unresolved conflict has three devastating effects in life.

First, it blocks your fellowship with God. When you’re out of harmony with others, you can’t be in harmony with God. When you’re distracted by conflict with other people, you can’t have a clear connection with God. The Bible says, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar” (1 John 4:20 NLT).

Second, unresolved conflict hinders your prayers. Over and over again the Bible says that when your life is characterized by conflict, sin, and disharmony, your prayers are blocked. “It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore” (Isaiah 59:2 NLT).

Third, unresolved conflict hinders your happiness. You can’t be happy and in conflict at the same time. When conflict comes in through the front door, happiness goes out the back door.

Once conflict enters a relationship, it won’t go away on its own. You can’t make it disappear by ignoring, denying, or sweeping conflict under the rug.

Have you heard the expression, “Time heals everything”? That’s simply not true. Time heals nothing! If time healed everything, you wouldn’t ever need to see the doctor. When you’ve got an open wound and you don’t deal with it, it festers. Conflict is the same way. Anger turns to resentment, and resentment turns to bitterness.

So, to get rid of conflict, you need to intentionally deal with it. Don’t wait for the other person to come to you. Go to the person you’re in conflict with. Take the initiative and be the peacemaker.

Only courageous people resolve conflict. Maybe the most courageous thing you can do is to face an issue that you’ve been ignoring for a long time—whether it’s in your marriage, with your kids, with your employees or your boss, or whoever.

Where do you find the courage to face and resolve conflict? You get it from God.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (NLT). Let God’s Spirit fill your life, and you’ll find yourself filled with power, love, and self-discipline. God’s love will overcome fear and give you the courage to resolve conflict and bring healing to your relationships.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” Proverbs 19:11 (NIV)

Hurt people hurt people.

When someone hurts you, it’s because they’ve been hurt. Unkind people don’t feel kindness themselves. Unloving people feel unloved.

When someone is rude, bitter, unkind, sarcastic, mean-spirited, or arrogant, they are shouting with all of their behaviors, “I am in pain! I need massive doses of love! I do not feel secure!”

Secure, loved people don’t act that way. The person who feels deeply loved and deeply secure is generous and gracious to other people.

So how should you respond when someone hurts you? For many people, the knee-jerk response is anger.

Here’s a widely held belief: You have only a set amount of anger in your life. When that “bucket” of anger is full, you need to pour it out—to express your anger. Then, when the bucket is empty, it will be cathartic.

If you believe that, you’ll struggle with anger for your entire life. The truth is, you don’t have just a bucket of anger. You have an entire anger factory! That factory can keep on producing and producing and producing. When you get rid of the anger you have, you’ll get more. In fact, the more anger you throw out, the more it produces.

Study after study has shown that aggression only creates more aggression. Angry outbursts lead to more anger, and soon anger becomes your habitual pattern.

So you can’t just pour your anger out; that anger bucket will just refill. Instead, you need to let it go.

Proverbs 19:11 says, “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense” (NIV).

When your goal is to just get even, you’re no better than your opponent. To respond wisely instead, overlook offenses. Look past a person’s words to their pain. Offer love and patience.

The American poet Edwin Markham wrote this short poem: “He drew a circle that shut me out—heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!”

When someone hurts you, you have a choice. You can respond in anger, which will only create more anger. Or you can respond wisely in love, overlooking offenses and overcoming evil with good.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness.”  Proverbs 14:29 (NLT)

When someone is angry with you, it’s easy to show anger in return. But before you allow yourself to get mad back, calculate what you’re going to lose. Calculate the cost of anger.

The Bible is extremely specific about uncontrolled anger. Proverbs 29:22 says, “An angry person causes trouble; a person with a quick temper sins a lot” (NCV). In Proverbs 15:18, you read, “Hot tempers cause arguments” (GNT). And Proverbs 14:29 says, “A hot temper shows great foolishness” (NLT).

When you let anger take control, there is a cost. You’re going to get in trouble. You’re going to sin. You’re going to cause arguments. You’re going to make mistakes.

When you lose your temper, you always lose. You may lose someone’s respect, the love of your family, your health, or even your job.

Maybe you’re someone who uses anger to motivate people to do the right thing. Don’t do it! You may get the short-term payoff. But in the long run, anger always produces more anger, more apathy, and more alienation.

How many kids have become alienated from a parent because of out-of-control anger? How many people have been alienated from a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, a wife, or a friend because somebody lost their cool? Anger destroys relationships faster than anything else.

If you realize there’s always a price for returning anger for anger, you’re less likely to get angry when somebody’s pushing your buttons.

So before you retaliate, ask yourself, “Do I really want to do this? Do I want to make mistakes? Do I want to sin more? Do I want to cause arguments? Do I want to act foolish?”

Proverbs 14:29 says, “People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness” (NLT).

Anger always comes with a price tag. Before you retaliate, calculate the cost. Then choose the wise path of controlling your anger.