Posts of Encouragement

Posted Sunday 25th July 2021

I'm running out of ways to say hello, so hello!

Welcome to the last bit of the Posts of Encouragement page, then it's back to the Underrated Bible Scriptures again.

It's called Posts of Encouragement, the reason which I just thought of now, because each thing I talk about on here is going to have a subheading.

The Underrated Bible Scriptures won't.

Without further ado, and I always say this, let's begin!

#Encouragement 6

Everyone Has Sinned

This came to my mind just now actually, with Proverbs 28:13 lingering in my mind for a pretty long time now.

Anyone who hides their sins doesn’t succeed.
    But anyone who admits their sins and gives them up finds mercy. Proverbs 28:13

Let me tell you something.

Actually, you may already know what I'm going to tell you, but I'm going to repeat it again, just as a reminder.

Everybody has sinned!

I need to say this constantly to myself because I can't lie, some people actually seem perfect.

And there, my friends, is that word. That 4 letter word that changes everything.

S.E.E.M.

I've even accused some people of being perfect, mainly because I just can't imagine them doing the wrong thing or getting into trouble for anything. 

Then they tell me some times where they've done something wrong and I find it hard to believe them.

Even when someone I presume as "flawless" messes up right in front of me, I tend to overlook it. This isn't good. 

You've got to remember that everyone has problems and you don't really know what goes on beneath the surface.

Never undermine someone's problems. Do not do the following:

You're insecure about your looks and a very attractive person tells you that looks aren't everything - and you take your anger out on them because they're more attractive than you.

You're struggling financially and a rich person tells you that money really doesn't buy happiness - and once again you're mad at them, telling them to be grateful.

No, everyone has problems irrespective of who they are. On social media, nobody posts about the bad days.

I mean I certainly don't post about my bad days online, and I don't blame myself. Everyone wants people to see them in a positive light in real life and online, including me. But I don't people please or seek validation anymore.

Unfortunately, some people brag (and worst case scenario, name drop *shudders*) and act condescending towards others online that you're even wondering why you're following someone like that online, or watching their status or whatever.

It's good to post your achievements and posts about the good times, just don't overdo it because people will eventually think you're showing off, or deliberately trying to make them jealous or feel bad.

You know some people are actually like that - but I  trust that you aren't!

Further bible scriptures related to this topic today can include, but is not limited to...

When you sin, the pay you get is death. But God gives you the gift of eternal life. That’s because of what Christ Jesus our Lord has done. Romans 6:23

Everyone has sinned. No one measures up to God’s glory. Romans 3:23

Suppose we claim we are without sin. Then we are fooling ourselves. The truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8

And you can also read John 8:1-11 which was about the women committing adultery, which she had gotten a lot of shade for, and Jesus told them whoever has not sinned shall cast the first stone. Then everyone went quiet.

Kind of like tumbleweed.

Some people love pointing out the mistakes of others, not knowing that they're not mistake free or flawless themselves, no one is. I've even experienced this online recently but I don't want to go into it.

I guess that's why I chose this topic!

#Encouragement 7 - Last One!

Be Strong And Do Exploits

His army will come and make the temple area ‘unclean.’ They will put a stop to the daily sacrifices. Then they will set up a hated thing that destroys.

He will pretend to praise those who have broken the covenant. He will lead them to do what is evil. But the people who know their God will firmly oppose him. Daniel 11:31-32

A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you. Psalms 91:7

I chose this topic as the last one because I'm always hearing the scripture they that know their God shall be strong and do exploits, and I temporarily remember that it's from Daniel 11:32.

Then I forget.

I guess this is my way of remembering Daniel 11:32 permanently.

Let me just add Daniel 11:29-30.

29 “At God’s appointed time, the king of Syria will march south again. But this time things will turn out differently. 

30 Roman ships will oppose him. He will lose hope. Then he will turn back. He will take out his anger against the holy temple. And he will do good to the Jews who desert it.

If you want to do exploits, then you need to be strong.

If you want to be strong, then trust in the Lord. Pray for strength if you have to.

Just make sure you don't turn to him half heartedly or if you want to get something from him, make sure that you do so all of the time, regardless of your mood or what you may be going through in life right now. If anything.

I like this saying - mainly because I made it up but I still love it. Is it not true?

"Giving with strings attached isn't really giving."

This is true, especially for the Lord. Make sure that you seek God because you want, not because of what you can get from him, ie strength and other things.

He will give you these things automatically, you just need to earn it first.

That's it for now, I shall see you next time in Underrated Bible Scriptures, part 4.

I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I have enjoyed writing this xx

Tata for now!

Posted Thursday 22nd July 2021

Hey, hey, hey! I hope you're having a good day or night, depending on when you're reading this.

Good news guys, to save you from scrolling, I've decided to do the most recent post at the top, starting from today onwards.

In fact, don't mind me. I don't even know why I only thought of this idea today. It was the most sensible thing to do.

These are basically underrated Bible Scriptures to be honest but I wanted a different name for it.

(Jamal from OMB dancing to the fact that the most recent post will be up first 😁😁😃)

Imma do this quickly (but not too quickly so it doesn't seem like I rushed anything)


Here is the next set of inspirational quotes.

There will be seven of these in total (as seven is the number of perfection!) and today, I'm doing two. Next time, I will do two as well.

Encouragement #4

Be Strong And Courageous

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

You can find this in Joshua 1:9 - A scripture I've heard of many times but I never really remember what it actually says.

I was told today (I will keep the people who told me things anonymous, unless it's from like a book or something. But if it's a person in my everyday life, then for security reasons I will not mention who they are) that I should keep on believing in myself no matter what life throws at me.

That's coincidentally what this verse is saying as well.

Why this was said to me?

Because I said that I was proud of this website, and I am. I can't believe I did all of this. 

When I first started this, of course I had my own doubts and insecurities about starting for the first time (like most people) but by God's grace, I've managed to overcome them throughout time.

Whenever I post, I'm always listening to songs that relate to it on my Gospel Playlist by serendipity. Today's song that I was listening to which relates to this was All Things Are Possible by Sinach.

Long story short, the pre-chorus had said this.

It doesn't matter what you're going through

It doesn't matter how far you've gone

God's arms are always open wide

All you need is to believe

God wants us to believe in him no matter what, and to trust in him as well.

Sometimes, the devil will make it seem as though God is against you, especially if you're really far or high up with your faith and/or your walk with God.

The next song I listened to after this song (Work It Out) by Tye Tribbett describe Satan's tactics flawlessly. Better than I can, anyway.

The enemy tryna make you feel like pain will be (always)

But you know like I know that trouble will never last (always)

So hold ya head up high

God is on your side

And He loves you

And He cares

He's so faithful (Never fails!)

If you can't tell already, I love my music. I'm a very musical / creative person.

For example, my piano is one of the things I can't live without. It has become very indispensable in my life. It's one of my best friends - indirectly.

In fact, the next scripture I'm going to talk about today talks about this in more detail, but I don't want to mention it here, I want to mention it there.

Pain will not be always, in fact if anything that's a lie by the devil that you should never believe. 

Someone made a testimony in a church I was watching the other day that she had miscarriages or stillborn babies for about 10 years before she had given birth to one child and twins after that.

Something like that anyway, I can't fully remember. 

Either way, the testimony was absolutely sensational and mind blowing, simultaneously being one of the best ones I have ever heard in my life.

See? What God cannot do does not exist.

The more you believe that, then the better.

The testimony had also made me realise something. Here I was complaining about some trivial things that didn't really matter, when someone had been through all that!

So next time you complain about frivolous or unnecessary things such as your phone not working, someone annoying you to death or the internet being slow, just remember.

Those aren't real problems. They're important, I'm not saying they're not... but they're not as important as miscarriages, grieving people, people in financial struggles etc.

Trust me, some people look so flawlessly put together, then once they've told what they've been through, you're shocked that they went through all that, and that they managed to survive it.

So yes, looks are very deceiving. Either way, trust in the Lord at all times!

His looks are never deceiving.

Encouragement #5

Don't Let The Devil Win!

So the scripture I'm going to be using for this is a bit dark but I can turn it into light!

You belong to your father, the devil. You want to obey your father’s wishes. From the beginning, the devil was a murderer. He has never obeyed the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his natural language. He does this because he is a liar. He is the father of lies. John 8:44

This links to the other post when I said that the devil will deliberately try to cause you pain.

Not by accident, the devil knows exactly what he's doing.

Unfortunately, the devil is actually pretty smart so we can't just ignore him even if we wanted to. 

Occasionally ignoring him wouldn't really do him justice, hence why we've got to get him out of our lives as soon as possible. 

You've probably heard of the term get deep behind me, Satan, or something similar - yeah, this is just a way of telling him to get out of your life.

Sigh does Satan even deserve a capital S? He's practically the most insignificant person in the Bible.

I was in midweek service for something today and this quote was used.

They were talking about signs of disloyalty, and this verse was used for lies.

The rest were:

Tail-bearing (gossiping)

Disobedience

Rudeness

Inflexibility

Scorning or making fun of someone.

If you don't want to be disloyal then simply don't follow these signs.

I had limited time to write today, so I'll probably edit this in the future, to make it longer but for now, goodbye!

Lola xoxo

Posted Monday 19th July 2021

 What's up?

Posting this just past 3AM, I would have done so earlier but I'm not really supposed to be using my laptop and charging at at the same time.

Normally I post (Underrated) Bible Scriptures but today, God laid it on my heart to do something different. When I was talking about Psalms 119 in my main posts page, I was normally copying and pasting my notes from somewhere - and I managed to copy some things that aren't related to that as well.

They are still from the Bible and I wanted to encourage you guys with this so sit back, relax and enjoy reading.

I even said I'd talk about this there today on my main page.

Comparison is a very common thing in life and everyone struggles with it, or they have struggled with it at some point if they don't do so now. 

I've struggled with it in the past and I admit that - even today otherwise I wouldn't have researched it.

But I've stopped now, I love my life and I wouldn't trade it for anything. No way am I giving up all my talents away, as well as my family and my friends.

In my pages post today I will talk about that more - and I'm sorry today was a relatively short post. 

That wasn't actually said in the scene but it's still true either way!

So without further ado, let's begin!

Encouragement #1 

There will be approximately seven of them but I'm going to post 3 today as it's pretty late. I'll edit this and make it 7 when I next come here.

Why God Allows Suffering

Psalms 119:73-74

73 You made me and formed me with your own hands. Give me understanding so that I can learn your commands. 

74 May those who have respect for you be filled with joy when they see me. I have put my hope in your word.

God created us and he gave life to us. 

Hebrews 12:2 says that we should look to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Nobody else can plan your life for you.

Psalms 139:14 also says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. God made each of us beautifully and to hate yourself is to hate what God has made you become.

Everyone has moments where they hate themselves or they’re mad at themselves. 

You're kidding yourself if you say you haven't. It doesn't even have to be recently. It just has to have happened before.

 In real life I can be like this sometimes most especially when I’ve had a bad day. 

This is called perfectionism behaviour and I don't encourage it.

But because I haven’t really had a bad day lately, it’s therefore not as bad.

May those who have respect for God be filled with joy when they see you. This should be because you have put your hope in God’s word.

And when I copied and pasted this from somewhere it was Easter Sunday so I hope you had a lovely Easter everyone! And let’s not forget why we celebrate it. Jesus Christ died so that you and I could live.

Yeah I know Easter was three months away but I'm not editing this part out 😝  I've noticed that we don't always pay much attention to the cross though, Easter or not.

I hope y’all had a good Easter. Since Jesus Christ more or less suffered as he died for our sins, I was therefore thinking about posting on why God allows suffering

It’s very easy for people to question their faith, most especially when someone bad happens in their life. They ask “how can God exist when there is so much evil in the world?” This is known as a theodicy

So why does God allow suffering?

There are many reasons why but I will just point out three main ones

1) We live in a broken world

Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, the world had instantaneously became imperfect since then.

The serpent deceived them in Genesis 3 I believe and because they fell into temptation, the world was therefore not perfect anymore. Before this event, the world was pretty much flawless.

2) We turn to God more in troubled times than in good times

I talked about this earlier on today or yesterday - when I had actually posted this anyway (April). Psalms 55:22 says Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

That’s probably why we turn to God more in troubled times than good. 

Because it says cast your burden into him. We don’t really have any burdens when our lives are going good. 

Regardless, we should still praise God for it. ‘Cause like I said earlier, it is God that makes the good things happen.

There’s a similar saying in Matthew that says cast your burden to Jesus. Matthew 11:28 says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus will give you rest.

3) Without the bad things then we won’t appreciate the good.

If good things kept happening in our lives everyday then when the bad times come, we won’t be able to handle them. God doesn’t want that. You are tested with stress before you are blessed with success. 

I got that from church.

Sometimes we have more than what we can handle but if you turn to God then he should be able to help you.

God will never give you more than what we can handle though - if anything we're the ones that think we can't handle it.

#Encouragement 2   

We Are Fearfully & Wonderfully Made

I don’t know who needed to hear this today but you are beautiful and unique. Never look down on yourself for we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14)

Stop trying to be someone you’re not and stop trying to be perfect. 

In fact, the word perfection should be a 10 letter word that shouldn’t exist because no one is perfect.

I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect. No one is— and even the people that seemingly have it all together probably don’t.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 says Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. 

Because there isn’t. We’ve all sinned.

But the message of this post is to be happy with yourself and never feel like you have to be someone you’re not just to please other people. If people don’t like you for the real you then they’re honestly not worth your time.

Stop comparing yourself to other people. You never know who’s looking at your life wishing that they had yours.

For example. I play piano. 

I don’t do grades but I’m self taught. I literally can’t read music to save my life without writing it down first and I know almost nothing about fingering but I can play challenging songs.

So if I was to look at someone who can play better than me, ie someone grade 8 or something, it’s natural for me to compare myself to them. 

That’s until I sit down and remember what I can play that other people probably wish they could.

Compare yourself to the person you were yesterday. 

 It’s better for you to be a first rate version of yourself than to be a second rate version of someone else.

If you were to compare yourself to someone, it should be for inspiration and not to look down on yourself. 

Because the chances are the person you’re looking at probably has a lot of insecurities you know nothing about. Maybe even more than you.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

As human, we are naturally wired to think about the negative things going on in our lives. Not just us though, the news can sensationalise ((over) exaggerate) the bad things going on in the world.

If someone dies or if a so called "perfect" couple break up, then people flock to those news fast. 

Why do you think the news only really mentions the COVID deaths and not the survivors instead?

But if it's someone's birthday however, nobody really cares.

Yes though, be happy with who you are and not wish to be someone else.

You can use them for inspiration otherwise it is a waste of time.

And as I always like to think - not say much, think...

Unto the last one now.

Encouragement #3

*Set Goals For Yourself!!*

In life, we would want to achieve different things. And some people would want to achieve it without setting goals for themselves, this isn’t good.

Proverbs 21:20-22 says

20 The wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.

21 The man who tries to be good, loving, and kind finds life, righteousness, and honor.

22 The wise man conquers the strong man and levels his defenses.

It’s good for you to set goals. Goals help you break down what you want to achieve. 

And when you’ve achieved it, it feels wonderful. But the number one reason I believe some people don’t always achieve their goals is because they’re too unrealistic.

For example someone could be like

I have sold 50 cupcakes today. By the end of the month, I want to sell 1K.

Then the end of the month comes and they somehow don’t achieve their goal.

This is a good goal but what I would do is instead of trying to reach 1K straight away, or setting goals for the end of the month?

Set them for every day.

Ie I will sell 50 cupcakes a day.

Or instead of getting to 1K, get to 100... then 200... then 300– y’all see where I’m going with this?

What I’m trying to say is it’s good for you to set ten small goals to get to the eleventh big goal. 

This is better than setting a huge goal straight away.

So taking the cupcake example

“I want to sell 5K cupcakes by the end of month. I’ve already sold 100 so far.”

Try hitting 200, then 300, 400, 500 and then some until you hit 5K. The smaller goals can get bigger as you go along.

So if you have a goal in life that’s really big, slow your roll! Break it down into smaller pieces first. Then try to accomplish it. You’ll feel happier if you did.

I hope this post made sense. 

This was very unprepared for not gonna lie, when I originally posted this somewhere. I was just thinking about it. 

I honestly had no intention of posting this today until God revealed it to me. but hope it helped regardless

Have a good day/ night

So that's all folks, I'll see you when I see you!