How to Handle Our Burdens

I receive the Dr. Charles Stanley free monthly magazine. This month there was an article on how to handle our burdens. Here is some notes from the article that might be helpful to some of you who are heavy burdened at the moment.

There are three different sources for struggles we encounter:
1. Situations we may bring upon ourselves
2. Purely the work of the devil
3. Some are test that come directly from God himself.

God wants to lift our load and carry it for us. He personally invites everyone of us who is weary to find refreshment in him.
1 John 5:3 Loving God means obeying his commands. And God's commands are not to hard for us, because everyone who is a child of God conquers the world, and this is the victory that conquers the world- our faith.

Our own hardships, heartaches, etc...are what forms the fertile soil for our spiritual growth.

We have to ask ourselves, Do I want what the flesh wants, which is ease, comfort and pleasure, or do I want to become the godly person God wants me to be? It is a choice all believers have to make. It is hard....
God did not intend on the christian life to be difficult. John 16:33 "I told you these things so that you can have peace in me. In this world you will have trouble, but be brave! I have defeated the world."

When we are faced with a burden, Read Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, an I will give you rest. Accept my teachings and learn from me because I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives. The teaching I ask you to accept is easy; the load I give you to carry is light!"

From this passage we learn four things:
1. Humble Ourselves
2. Submit Ourselves *If you want Jesus to take your burden, He must have all of you, not just the problem. If you allow him to control you then he will in fact deal with your burden.
3. Learn of Him *We have to read and obey his word daily. We cannot simply unload our problems on Him and then continue to live anyway we want. That is the reason we / or some have continious burdens, we are not submissive to Him.
4. Trust * Trustin God with our burdens doe's not mean we will never give another thought to the situation. Rather we will think of it in a new light; The light of Jesus Christ who is sufficiency, the light of the promise of God.
Psalm50:22 Think about this-you who forget God. Otherwise I will tear you apart, and no one will save you. Now that is some thing to fear!

If you are carring a burden today- submit to the Lord and he will lift you up. He will give you the Holy Spirits power to enable you to face any of lifes challenges.

I hope this will be of some worth to someone out there.