https://www.guidelines.org/encouragingwords/

Encouraging Words, PO Box 2035, Mission Viejo, CA (2025)

11/10/2025

God Wants a Relationship with Me
By: Darlene Sala
November 10, 2025

Imagine being able to have anything you want—anything. No limits in size or amount or intricacy. You could just “speak it” and it would be in existence. That’s how it is with God. The God of the universe can create anything He desires. And He did.

The part about this that amazes me is that He created US. Knowing the free will He gave us would result in our rejecting Him and choosing our own way, He still created the human race. Why did He do it?

As incredible as it may be, God created us because He wants to have a relationship with us. Knowing from the very beginning that Adam and Eve, our earliest forebearers, would sin and break that relationship with Himself, He still created us.

There was a tremendous cost to this plan. God would have to pay an incredible price to redeem us from our fallen or sinful condition so that He, a holy God, could have fellowship with human beings once again. The price was the death of His Son on the cross to pay for our sins. The Bible tells us, “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22).

He did all this because He wants us for Himself. Scripture says: “But now, this is what the Lord says, He who created you, O Jacob, [and] he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, … I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine’“ (Isaiah 43:1).

I am His! He wants me! In spite of all my imperfections and limitations and “warts”, He wants me! Thank you, Lord!

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/god-wants-a-relationship-with-me/

11/03/2025

Do You Ever Feel Invisible?
By: Darlene Sala
November 3, 2025

There are times in my life when I’d just like to be invisible. I don’t want to hear anyone call my name for help, or ask me one more question, or expect anything from me. Do you ever wish you could just stay in bed and pull the covers up over your head for the entire day?

Well, few of us have that luxury. People are depending on us. We can’t risk losing our jobs. So we keep going.

There is one place, however, where you can go to hide. You can run to God, as a baby bird runs to its mother and hides under her wings. Psalm 91 tells us this: “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart” (Psalm 91:4).

For a baby bird, under its mother’s wings is a place of safety, warmth, and comfort; a place of closeness to the one who can take care of its needs. For us, being under God’s wing also means safety and comfort and provision, as well.

The Psalmist David wrote, “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8).

God says, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13).

The apostle Paul wrote, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

When an eaglet is under his mother’s wing, it’s dark. Sometimes under God’s wing we can’t see anything either, but we know that He can see what is ahead and He will protect us. Peace comes because we know the one who cares for us. Run to Him for refuge.

Listen at: https://ow.ly/TYvF50XkFsN

10/27/2025

Teaching the Next Generation
By: Darlene Sala
October 27, 2025

Over a hundred years ago, a baby girl was welcomed in Saskatchewan, Canada and named Audrey. She grew up on the Canadian prairie, learning at an early age to churn butter and to bake bread in a wood stove.

Audrey was my mother. She was raised in a Christian home and accepted Christ as her Savior at special meetings that were held in her town. There she met a young pastor named Guy who began to show an interest in her. The favorite family story is how after spending the evening at her parents’ home he managed to take home one of her shoes—which meant, of course, that he had to return the next day to give back the shoe—a good excuse to see her again. I’m not sure he realized they were her only pair of shoes!

Eventually her family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Guy conducted special services in her church. She was asked to play the piano for the meetings—which again brought her to the attention of the young minister. To make a long story shorter, on July 3, 1935, they were married.

I’m so thankful for a Christian mother and grandmother on both sides of my family. What a heritage! Now our three children also love the Lord—and 8 grandchildren have been raised to know Him well.

If you are a parent or your life involves children, take note of these Bible verses and underline them. Found in Psalm 78: “We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done ... which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so [that] the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children” (Psalm 78:4-6).

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/teaching-the-next-generation-2/

10/20/2025

What To Do When You Feel Like Giving Up
By: Darlene Sala
October 20, 2025

Asaph, who wrote many of the Psalms in the Bible, was discouraged, so discouraged that he had about given up on God. In Psalm 77, Asaph asks five questions that convey the despair he was feeling: “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” (Psalm 77:7-9). Asaph tells us he cried aloud and couldn’t sleep. He was in a bad way!

One of the reasons I love the Bible is that it’s so honest. If a person was “fed up” with God, you’ll read about it in God’s Word. I believe it’s an indication that He wants us to be honest with Him about our feelings.

Maybe you’re feeling the same way Asaph did, wondering if God has forgotten you because you have a big need in your life that is still unmet. If so, don’t stop with the first part of Asaph’s Psalm 77, because Asaph goes on to give us the solution.

He writes, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. . . What god is great like our God?” (Psalm 77:10-13) And then he goes on to list some of the wonders God had done in the past.

Say, what wonders has God done in your past that you haven’t thought of about lately? He is still the same God today.

Hold on! Know that He hasn’t stopped loving you or forgotten you. In His time, He will answer with exactly what you need, for there is no other God like Him!

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/what-to-do-when-you-feel-like-giving-up-2/

10/13/2025

Do You Feel Overloaded?
By: Darlene Sala
October 13, 2025

When I crawl in bed at night, sometimes my mind just doesn’t want to turn off: the houseguests who are coming this weekend, the latest terrible shooting on the news, the phone call from a friend whose son is at the point of death, a list for shopping that needs to be done first thing tomorrow morning. My mind flits from one to the other. Oh, no, they’re not all bad thoughts. It’s just that there are so many of them. What can I do to prevent sensory overload?

Well, first of all, while we need to keep up with what’s going on in the world, watching hour after hour of TV news only floods my mind with things I usually can do nothing about. So, I must set limits.

Secondly, when friends have big problems in their lives, the best thing I can do is to listen intently and pray. Even there, I’ve learned I need to set time limits.

Keeping paper and pencil by the bed for jotting down in the night those things you need to do can help better put them out of your mind until morning and probably let you go back to sleep.

Ultimately, however, if you’re going to find peace, you have to replace bothersome thoughts with the eternal truths of God’s Word. Truths like, “You [will] keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3). Old standbys like “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). The Bible tells us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Yes, there comes a time when you have to bring your thoughts into captivity to Christ. I like the way my mom put it: “God, if You never go to sleep, then there’s no use both of us staying awake!” So true!

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/do-you-feel-overloaded-2/

10/06/2025

Why Should I Learn How to Forgive?
By: Darlene Sala
October 6, 2025

My friend, Dr. Richard Smith, tells of counseling a woman who had been gang r***d as a teen. Although she was a believer and said she had forgiven the men, years later the trauma still haunted her.

“On what grounds did you forgive the men who r***d you,” Richard asked her.

“On the same grounds that Christ did,” she replied: “‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’“

Richard writes, “What [she] did sounds nice and spiritual, even pious, but it is not forgiveness by God’s standard. God would have us forgive not excuse.” How do we excuse? Richard lists phrases that we often use, such as: “They are just human,” “They didn’t know what they were doing,” “They grew up in a terrible home.”

While these phrases possibly explain their behavior, they are not an excuse for sin. The sinner deserves to pay for what he or she did, however, it’s up to God to see that justice is done on our behalf. Richard explains that “When we forgive, we are giving that other person over into God’s hands…, trusting that God will…see that a payment for sin is made either by that person or by Christ,”[1] who died for all of our sins on the cross.

Is your heart still full of anger and rage at what was done to you? Or can you put the matter in God’s hands to see that justice is done?

“As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13), says Colossians. Right now, you can pray this prayer with me: Dear Lord, with all my heart I forgive that person who You know wronged me. I put him in Your hands to punish or to show mercy. I realize I have no right to refuse to forgive when You have forgiven me. Amen.

[1] Dr. Richard Smith, “Forgiveness: Fact & Fiction,” Insights (Bland, VA: Cross Ministries, n.d.).

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/why-should-i-learn-how-to-forgive-2/

09/29/2025

God's Purposes for Me
By: Darlene Sala
September 29, 2025

She flipped over the page of the calendar. The new page, February, stared back at her, decorated with its lacey hearts and pink roses. Valentine’s Day? Love? Even though she was still in her late teens, she could not relate. In her despair, instead of going downstairs for a drink, she turned to her computer to reach out to a voice she had heard on a Christian radio program: “Guidelines, A Five-minute Commentary on Living.”

She wrote, “It is the middle of the night, and here I am writing to you. What is bothering me is me—who am I? I’m only nineteen. My mother and father are gone. I am the last of nine children. I have two children to love, and they’re all I have to live for. Please write back.”

How could she be convinced God loved her? Not by her circumstances. She had hardly known love other than through her two children. Only one thing could be convincing enough to reach her in her misery: the truth that God loved her enough to sacrifice His Son, Jesus, for her; Love that wasn’t dependent on her performance.

Are you in similar circumstances? Let me assure you God does love you. He has a purpose for your life that will unfold as you walk with Him day by day. It won’t always be easy, but as you hold on to Him in the hard times, you will find He will direct your life. As the writer of Psalm 57 said, “I cried out to the God Most High, the God who fulfills his purpose for me” (v. 2).

Fill your heart with the assurance that the God who died for you won’t leave you now. He will fulfill His purpose for your life as you call out to Him.

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/gods-purposes-for-me/

09/22/2025

Can I Leave My Worries with God?
By: Darlene Sala
September 22, 2025

Here’s a thought that challenges me: “Prayer is bringing your wishes and worries to God; faith is leaving them there.”[1] The “prayer” part is easy, but the “faith” part that is, leaving our worries with God, is quite another matter, right?

Prayer, the way we bring our concerns to God, is almost an automatic reaction when we’re in trouble. Even people who say they don’t believe in God, cry out frantically to Him when they are in desperate situation. But it takes sincere faith to leave those anxieties with Him and trust that He is going to bring good out of the most horrible of circumstances.

Sometimes when I’m really anxious about a situation, I’m hesitant to just leave it with God because that seems rather irresponsible. Shouldn’t I be doing something to help solve the problem? Yet, the truth is, only God knows the future, so He is the only one who can provide the right solution. Continuing to worry means I don’t really believe God is going to solve the problem.

In the Bible, the apostle Peter tells us that we should cast our anxieties on God, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). God feels concern for us in the way a parent does for a hurting child.

The word “casting” in this verse is different from casting a fishing line into the water only to reel it in a few minutes later. The meaning involves complete commitment of what is being cast, not bringing the problem to God in prayer only to take it back again on my own shoulders at the end of my prayer.

Lord, today I’m going to cast my anxieties on You, and by Your grace, leave them there. After all, You’re big enough to handle anything I bring to You.

[1] http://goo.gl/8qr7z3, accessed 7-27-2016.

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/can-i-leave-my-worries-with-god/

09/15/2025

In Times of Trouble
By: Darlene Sala
September 15, 2025

I found an interesting piece of advice pasted onto the fly leaf of my husband's Bible, authored by Andrew Murray, an outstanding traveling preacher, about the difficult days he sometimes faced. He wrote, "In time of trouble, say, first, God brought me here. It is by His Will I am in this straight place. In that I will rest. Next, He will keep me here in his love and give me grace in this trial to behave as His child. Then say, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow. And at last, say, in His good time, He can bring me out again, how and when He knows. Therefore say, I am here by God's appointment, in His keeping, under His training for His time."

What a beautiful statement of faith and dependence on God. What I like about this is that it seems, from the way it is written, that as soon as Andrew Murray found himself in a difficult situation, he immediately decided how he was going to face the problem. He saw that even a difficulty can be God's appointment. He knew God would not forsake him in the middle of the problem and would continue to show him His love and give him grace to deal with it. Moreover, He would make the trial a blessing, teaching him lessons God wanted him to learn. Lastly, God would bring him out of the problem in His own way and timing.

The apostle Paul was certainly experienced in difficulties and trials. His advice to us was to rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Then we too can say, I am here by God's appointment, in His keeping, under His training, for His time.

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/in-times-of-trouble-2/

09/08/2025

The Power of Prayer
By: Darlene Sala
September 8, 2025

John Stonestreet might not now be the voice of a life changing radio program called Breakpoint, if it had not been for an experience he had as a teen. Near Christmas, John's teacher announced that she was sending out students to visit the elderly of their church who could not attend anymore. It was a very reluctant teenager who teamed up with his buddy Brian and knocked on the door of a house in the country. The boys were hopeful no one would answer, but Miss Buckner invited them in. After a very brief visit, the boys explained that they had another house call to make, which was a lie. "Can we pray before you go?" asked Miss Buckner. How could they refuse? Stonestreet recounts, "I'd heard thousands of prayers, but I had never heard anything like this. I remember looking up just to make sure Jesus wasn't sitting next to her, because it sure sounded like He was. She spoke to God as if she knew Him." But that's not all.

Two years later, John woke up one morning with a strange desire to see Miss Buckner. And did she remember the boy who was now much taller? She replied, "I prayed for you this morning." Stonestreet said, "At age 14, I found myself in the home of this elderly woman I didn't know and didn't particularly care to know. I had lied to her, and yet God used her to alter the trajectory of my life."

I found out later that she had impacted many, many others in that community as well. Are you praying for someone to change? Never give up. Matthew 7:7 says, "Keep on asking, and it will be given to you." Prayer powerfully opened John's heart, and prayer can open the heart of that person you are earnestly praying for too.

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/the-power-of-prayer/

09/01/2025

God Can Solve That Problem
By: Darlene Sala
September 1, 2025

A verse that is often quoted when we are battling problems in life is Psalm 46 verse 10: "Be still and know that I am God." But what is its meaning and how should we apply this verse during the difficult times in our lives? Well, first of all, the phrase "be still" means more than merely to be quiet in God's presence. Though, I must say that if we would stop talking long enough to listen to what God wants to say to us, we'd no doubt be a lot better off. The phrase "be still" means to cease from frantic activity, to relax, to stop striving.

Some say it's a rebuke addressed to the nations that were attacking God's people. Others say that God is rebuking his own people for their lack of trust in Him. Perhaps both interpretations are right. Bible teacher Chuck Swindoll says the verse depicts the Lord as an angry parent breaking up a fight between siblings. While He is angry with those who are making war against His people, He's equally upset with the violence of His people who have turned to warfare rather than to trust in Him to fight their battles.

In our struggle to win the battles of life, it's easy to take more responsibility than we should, to try to overcome difficulties that God knows are actually too big for us to solve. God urges us to stop striving and instead fully commit, to trust Him to do what we can't do for ourselves. After all, Psalm 90 says that before God ever formed the world, from everlasting to everlasting, He is God. He knows that we can't win life's battles on our own.

Be still and know that He is God.

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/god-can-solve-that-problem/

08/25/2025

It Is Finished
By: Darlene Sala
August 25, 2025

When Jesus was crucified, the last word He said before He bowed His head and died, was the Greek word "tetelestai," which means "it is finished." Tetelestai was a common expression in Bible days, perhaps most commonly used in collecting debts. When people finally paid off their loans, they were issued a receipt stamped with the word tetelestai, as proof that the debt was now paid in full. When a prison sentence was completed, tetelestai was declared over the person's punishment. And when an army marched home after being victorious in battle, the soldiers shouted, "Tetelestai! It is finished. The war is won."

Every Jewish person who was in attendance the day Jesus was crucified would have instantly recognized tetelestai as a Hebrew phrase that was used in the Old Testament system of sacrifices. Each year, on the Jewish holiday called the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the temple and kill a lamb as a symbolic sacrifice for the sins of the people of Israel. As soon as the priest had killed the animal, he would declare to the waiting crowd in Hebrew, "It is finished."

Jesus became the perfect and final sacrifice for all sin. Jesus, the ultimate lamb of God, by His sacrifice of dying on the cross, paid for our forgiveness. The book of Hebrews tells us Jesus did away with our sins by the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9:26b).

So, by saying "It is finished," Jesus signaled to the world that our debt is paid. We can be free from all of our sins. All you need to do is to admit that you are a sinner, believe that Jesus died to pay for your sins, and tell Him you want Him to be Lord of your life. Don't put it off, do it today.

Listen at: https://www.guidelines.org/sermons/it-is-finished/

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