La Voix de l'Évangile

Dear friends,  

Do you sometimes read a book a second time? This week I’ve been reading “Anxious for Nothing” by Max Lucado. I can’t remember when I read it the first time and I am being blessed by his insights from God’s Word. On the back cover of the book is the following: “Max Lucado currently serves as Teaching Minister of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. He is America’s bestselling inspirational author with more than 140 million books in print.” You can learn more about his ministry at www.maxlucado.com.

If you’re like me, you can identify with what Max Lucado examines in the introduction to his book: “Anxiety is a meteor shower of what-ifs. What if I don’t close the sale? What if we don’t get the bonus? What if we can’t afford braces for the kids? What if my kids have crooked teeth? What if crooked teeth keep them from having friends, a career, or a spouse? What if they end up homeless and hungry, holding a cardboard sign that reads ‘My parents couldn’t afford braces for me’?”

Max continues: “Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one. Fear screams, Get out! Anxiety ponders, What if? Fear results in fight or flight. Anxiety creates doom and gloom. Fear is the pulse that pounds when you see a coiled rattlesnake in your front yard. Anxiety is the voice that tells you, Never, ever, for the rest of your life, walk barefooted through the grass. There might be a snake … somewhere.

The word anxious defines itself. It is a hybrid of angst and xious. Angst is a sense of unease. Xious is the sound I make on the tenth step of a flight of stairs when my heart beats fast and I run low on oxygen. I can be heard inhaling and exhaling, sounding like the second syllable of anxious, which makes me wonder if anxious people aren’t just that: people who are out of breath because of the angst of life.”

Believers in Christ should live confidently, knowing that the Lord Jesus has made it possible to know Him personally. This month, Pastor Michel Martel, the speaker of “La Voix de l’Ēvangile” since 1984, is addressing the subject:  “Comment naviguer la panique” (“How to navigate or handle panic”).

Yesterday the temperature here rose to double digits in Celsius and I saw a man jogging with no shirt on. He was enjoying the warm weather and living in the moment.

We live in a world where many people live in fear of starvation, disease, and many other life-threatening situations. May we do what we can to help people see that God loves us more than we can imagine and He waits patiently for us to repent of our sin and receive His forgiveness and grace.

Scripture for the weekend: “I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me.” Psalm 30:1 (NKJV)

Thought for the weekend: “When we think of psalms, we often think of praise psalms. Indeed, this is the second-largest category of psalms after laments. In the praise psalms, the glory of God is commended or lifted up.

The praise psalms fall into two categories: declarative praise, which relates to what God has done on a particular occasion; and descriptive praise, which describes God’s attributes and the acts He typically performs for His people. Each praise psalm has several elements:

By His grace,                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Steve