When friends abandoned him, Paul asked God not to count their actions against them. He followed the example of Jesus, who prayed for the Father to forgive His persecutors. What's your response when friends let you down? Forgiveness is the choice that pleases God every time.

The task of the Church after Jesus' resurrection and ascension was to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to all nations.

You must never sacrifice your relationship with God for the sake of a relationship with another person.

God allows us to dace difficulties so that our faith will be stretched and refined. The trials we face provide an excellent opportunity for us to declare our dependence on God and not on ourselves. The way we win the battle with discouragement is by humbling ourselves before God and telling Him that we need Him. There is only one way to do this, and it is through prayer.

God is honored by large, difficult, and impossible requests when we ask, seek, knock, and trust our loving Father always to answer for our good.

Disappointment is inevitable. But to become discouraged, there's a choice I make. God would never discourage me. He would always point me to himself to trust him. Therefore, my discouragement is from Satan. As you go through the emotions that we have, hostility is not from God, bitterness, unforgiveness, all of these are attacks from Satan.

In giving us children, God places us in a position of both leadership and service. He calls us to give up our lives for someone else's sake - to abandon our own desires and put our child's interests first. Yet, according to His perfect design, it is through this selflessness that we can become truly fulfilled.