Rick Warren's Blog, page 532

God Empowers Us for a Life of Service

There are three things you can do with your life: You can waste it, you can spend it, or you can invest it. The best use of your life is to invest it in something that will last longer than your time on Earth.

You Have Direct Access to God

God says that you are a priest. Depending on your background, that may be scary or confusing. Peter is saying that the two benefits that priests have are now available to everyone who is a believer.

Change Requires Confession

God allows a crisis to get our attention, and then he uses the crisis to develop our character. One thing that signals we���re changing for the better is when we confess that we���re the problem. We stop blaming other people and admit, ���I am the problem with my life.��� Until we understand this, there can be no major change in our lives. This is the breakthrough God knows we need.

Problems Prepare You for Eternity

We need more than positive thinking to survive in this world. We need hope.

There are five reasons we can have hope through Christ found in 1 Peter 1. I���ve given you the first four in the last few days��� devotionals.

God���s Power Always Protects You

Hope matters.

In a world that often looks bleak, we need to understand that God���s best is yet to come.

We find five reasons in 1 Peter 1 why we can have hope no matter what���s going on in our lives. I���ve given you the first three of those reasons in recent devotionals.

God has already written the final chapter of your life

It���s easy to look around the world and not see any reason for hope. But God���s Word is clear: We have real reasons for hope. The first chapter of 1 Peter gives us five of those reasons. I���ve described two of them the last few days in these devotionals.

No Matter How Bad You Mess Up, God Will Show Mercy

No matter what you���re going through, you can live with hope. That���s the consistent, overriding message of the Bible.

In yesterday���s devotional, I shared with you the first reason we can live with hope: God chose us before we chose him.

Before You Chose God, He Chose You

There are many people in our broken world asking why things don���t seem to go right so much of the time. They want to know, ���Is there hope?���

Hope is essential.

God Will Never Let You Go

No matter how bad life gets, you can rest in one important truth: God won���t stop loving you.

You���ll have things go right. You���ll have things go wrong. But God���s love will never end ��� you can count on that.

God Will Meet Your Needs, Not Your ���Greeds���

One of our biggest worries tends to be about our ability to provide for our needs.

But it shouldn���t be!