Step By Step

Verse of the Week:  “The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord.  He delights in every detail of their lives.” (Psalm 37:23NLT)

Truth of the Week:  I am currently reading a book by Francis Chan called The Forgotten God.  (Like his previous book, Crazy Love, this book is easy to read and hard to live out…I would highly recommend them both.)  In the book, Chan makes the point that we often want to know God’s will for our lives, rather than seeking His leading for today – or even for the next ten minutes.  Although God may place dreams on our hearts and give us a vision of what He has in store for us, He is not in the habit of laying out the whole course of action at one time.  If He were to do so in my own life, I am certain that I would either shrink back in fear, overwhelmed by what the future held, or would step forth in pride, trying to accomplish God’s plans in my own puny strength.  Instead, God calls us to walk day by day, moment by moment, listening to the leading and depending on the enabling of His Holy Spirit, whom He has placed within us.  Walking with God in this manner helps us to develop the intimacy with Him and gain the reliance on Him that we were created to experience.  Our lives are meant to be lived one step at a time, confidently believing that God delights to direct those steps.

Quote of the Week:  “It is easy to use the phrase ‘God’s will for my life’ as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience.  It’s much less demanding to think about God’s will for your future than it is to ask Him what He wants you to do in the next ten minutes.  It’s safer to commit to following Him someday instead of this day.”  (Francis Chan, The Forgotten God)

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Letting God Lead

Verse of the Week:  “I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.”  (Jeremiah 10:23)

Truth of the Week:  As we go about our day to day living, it is so easy to slip into the trap of making our own plans and pursuing our own agendas without actually consulting God.  We ask God to be with us wherever we are going, and to bless us in whatever we are doing, without truly asking Him where He would have us go and what He would have us do.  This is something that God has been convicting me of in my own life lately.    Instead of saying, “God, would You please be with me today,” I feel as if He has been prompting me to say, “God, would You please help me to be with You today.”  He has already promised to always be with me; I want to learn to always be with Him.  Instead of asking Him to join me on whatever journey seems pleasing to me, I want to ask Him to direct my steps along the path that He has chosen.  I am the sheep, not the shepherd, and my job is not to lead but to follow wherever He leads. 

Quote of the Week:  “The shepherd and not the sheep chooses the pasture.”  (Thomas Manton, taken from Voices from the Past by Richard Rushing)

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A Trio of Truths

Verse of the Week:  “But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King.”  (Jeremiah 10:10)

Truth of the Week:  This week’s “truth of the week” is really a trio of truths that we need to impress on our souls:

1)      The LORD is the true God.  All day, every day, false gods will clamor for our attention and try to steal our affection, making endless promises that they are powerless to keep.  They tell us lies, claiming that they can bring us security and freedom and purpose and fulfillment.  But there is one true God, in whom there is no falsehood.  Every promise that He makes, He keeps.  He will always be who He says He will be, and will always do what He says He will do. 

2)      The LORD is the living God.  Our God is not lifeless; on the contrary, in Him fullness of life is found.  He is the source and the sustainer of all life.  He is not a figment of our imagination, nor is He a fabricated being in a fairy tale.  He is alive and active.  He sees and hears and feels and thinks and speaks and acts.  He is not just the God who did great and amazing things in the past, He is the God who works wonders in our lives today.

3)      The LORD is the everlasting King.  There has never been a time, and there will never be a time, when God will abandon His throne.  He rules forever.  All of His purposes come to pass, and none of His plans can be thwarted.  Nothing escapes His attention, and nothing is beyond is intervention.  In His sovereignty, He is free to do as He pleases, and what pleases Him is always right.

The LORD is true.  The LORD is living.  The LORD is King forever.  May these three truths lead us to praise the name of our great and awesome God.

Quote of the Week:  In the words of the late, great Rich Mullins – “Our God is an awesome God.  He reigns from heaven above.  With wisdom, power, and love – our God is an awesome God!”

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2BUSY4U

Verse of the Week:  “Be to me a rock of refuge; to which I may continually come.” (Psalm 71:3a)

Truth of the Week:  On school mornings, the kids and I leave the house at about the same time each day and travel the same twenty five minute route to get to our destination. As the year has gone on, we have come to recognize familiar vehicles that we see on a regular basis – usually identifiable by their decals or their license tags. One SUV always captures our attention as its license plate reads: 2BUSY4U. When we see this car, we can’t help but try and come up with clever come-backs, but we also can’t help but feeling a bit sorry for the driver. 2BUSY4U does not sound like a nice place to live.

Thankfully, this is not something that we will ever hear God say to us. On the contrary, because Jesus has made reconciliation possible, we can come to God anytime, anywhere, and talk to Him about anything. In fact, God assures us that He is always available, and that we will never wear out our welcome. The Almighty One desires fellowship with us, and is never too busy for us.

God always has time for us, but do we always have time for Him? I wonder if when God looks at our lives if it sometimes seems as though we are sporting our own little vanity tags that read the same as the car we pass on school mornings. Is the message that we are sending God – 2BUSY4U? Are we so over-booked, over-scheduled, over-loaded and overwhelmed that we have over-looked our desperate need to be still and draw near to our God? We were made to know and enjoy our Creator, and we will never be satisfied if we neglect being with Him.

Quote of the Week:  “They never think themselves so happy as when, having retired from the world, and gotten free from the noise and hurry of affairs, and silenced all their clamorous passions, those troublesome guests within, they have placed themselves in the presence of God, and entertain fellowship and communion with him; they delight to adore his perfections and recount his favours, and to protest their affection to him, and tell him a thousand times that they love him, to lay out their troubles or wants before him, and disburden their hearts in his bosom.” (Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man)

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Cultivating Confidence in God

Verse of the Week:  “They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.”  (Psalm 112:7 NLT)

Truth of the Week:  Let’s be honest – life isn’t always easy, is it?  Throughout the course of our lives we are sure to encounter a good deal of bad news.  We know that this is so even while we wish that it were not true.  We can look at our past and easily recall hard times that we have experienced.  Probably, we can look at our present and see difficult circumstances that we are in the midst of.  But perhaps the hardest “bad news” to handle is that which hasn’t even taken place yet.  The “what if’s” of future fears constantly try to take captive our thoughts and end up poisoning our peace. 

The weight of trying to carry tomorrow’s troubles today can be paralyzing.  What if my child is in an accident?  What if my husband loses his job?  What if the cancer comes back?…the list is endless.  I can be driving down the road, singing along with a song on the radio, when out of the blue an imaginary tragedy is taking place in my mind.  Before I know it, I am entertaining anxious thoughts over things that are unlikely to ever occur.  And even when I dwell on fears that seem to be more well-founded, the grace to walk in them will not be given in advance.

So, what are we to do with the worries that bombard us?  It may sound too simplistic for our sophisticated tastes, but the best way to battle fear is to cultivate confidence in God.  We must fill our minds with the truth (until it penetrates to our hearts) that God will take care of His children, no matter what.  There is nothing we will ever encounter that is too hard for Him.  He will never run out of the resources required to meet our every need.  Again, it may sound simplistic, but to grow deeper in our trust, we must spend quality and quantity time with God – for we will not trust a God that we do not know and we will not know a God that we keep at a distance

Will bad things happen in our lives?  Certainly. But when they do, we will always find our faithful God waiting to give us the grace that we need.

Quote of the Week:  “It has been said that our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength.”  (Charles Spurgeon)

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An Invitation to Intimacy

Verse of the Week:  “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  And there he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.”

Truth of the Week:  The transfiguration was an undeniably amazing event.  Can you imagine being invited by Jesus to come away with Him and witness this?  What would it have felt like to not only behold such glory, but to hear the very voice of God proclaiming, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased: listen to him.”  Can you imagine seeing Moses and Elijah appear and listening to them have a conversation with Jesus?  How I would love to know what words were spoken in that encounter! 

While the transfiguration was truly an incredible event, what is equally incredible to me is that we have a God who invites us to enjoy such intimacy with Himself.  Jesus desired His disciples to be with Him to see His glory.  He wanted them to experience this very personal encounter alongside Him.  Rather than removing Himself from them and keeping them at a distance, He brought them near and revealed Himself to them.

It blesses me beyond words to know that our God does not merely desire a master-servant relationship with us, although we do belong to Him.  Nor is He content with a teacher-student manner of relating, although we have everything in the world to learn from Him.  Instead, He uses the most intimate relationships that we can conceive of to express the level of closeness that we were created to enjoy with Him, calling Himself our Husband, our Father, and our Friend. 

We do not have a distant deity.  The God who made the heavens and the earth and who calls every star by name invites us to draw near and to know Him intimately.  He gave up His very life that we might experience a rich and genuine relationship with Him.  He created us that we might be close to Him.  May we not neglect such an incredible invitation!

Quote of the Week:  “What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we have in life? To know God. What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? To know God. What is the best thing in life? To know God. What in humans gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of Himself.” (J.I. Packer)

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Being Honest About Calamity

Verse of the Week:  “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.  I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.  I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.”  (Isaiah 45:5-7)

Truth of the Week:  One of the ladies in our Hungry Women group yesterday shared how this passage from Isaiah encouraged her because God did not shy away from using the word calamity, nor did He balk at taking ownership of its origin.  Often, when we are faced with circumstances that cause us deep distress, we can be tempted to say that it happened because the evil one was at work.  While it is true that we do have an adversary, and that he does desire our harm, any influence he has in our lives is governed by a sovereign God.  Another temptation we face when encountering a crisis is to sugar-coat it or to try and minimize it, denying that it is as painful as it is because somehow this seems more spiritual. We berate ourselves saying that if we simply had more faith we would not hurt so deeply.

 Perhaps it would be better if we were able to be more honest…to simply say that the adversity that we are facing is painful and it hurts beyond what our words are able to express.  To openly admit that calamities are hard and that we wish they would completely disappear from our lives.  And then, to continue being honest and to say that in spite of this, God is not unkind.  If He has brought adversity to us, it is always so that we may know that He is the Lord, and that we may see Him more clearly and experience the truth of who He is more fully.  It is hard to believe, but gaining intimacy with God really is worth the path of pain that may need to be walked in the process. 

So, when calamity strikes (and it will), let’s not blame it on the devil, or deny that it causes us pain.  Instead, let’s confess that God often sends what may not feel good to bring about what is good – a richer and deeper relationship with Himself.  May we learn to embrace what we would not choose, trusting that God will not waste the pain but will use it for our good and for His glory.

Quote of the Week:  “A season of suffering is a small price to pay for a clear view of God.”  (Max Lucado,  The Eye of the Storm)

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Seeing Beyond Our Circumstances

Verse of the Week:  “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”  (Isaiah 49:14)

Truth of the Week:  In the first thirteen verses of Isaiah 49, God is showering His hurting people with good news.  Not only is He sending someone to rescue them from the hands of the Babylonians, where they have spent years in exile and slavery, but He is also sending them a Savior to free them from their spiritual captivity, and to reconcile them to Himself.  One would think that this would be cause for celebration and great rejoicing, but instead the people respond with a “woe is me” attitude, saying that God has certainly turned away from them.  What’s up with this?  Why the discouragement and disbelief?

It would be easy to judge the Israelites harshly, but haven’t we all been there before?  There are times when things appear so hopeless that it is hard to see beyond our present circumstances.  It feels like things will never change.  There are seasons of pain and adversity when God’s promises seem unreal to us.  In the midst of heartache and hardship, it can feel like we have been forgotten by God, despite what His Word says to us.  But the truth is that God never abandons His children.  He is never unaware or uninvolved in our lives.  Even when we are blinded by the difficulties that surround us, we can be confident that God is at work for our good.  He knows, He sees, He hears and He cares about what is happening to us.  He assures that the glory that awaits us far outweighs the pain of our momentary trials, and reminds us that he has engraved us on the palms of His hands (49:16) and will never forsake us. 

Quote of the Week:  Before the Morning, by Josh Wilson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MniOtRnCO9I

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Trusting God in Times of Trouble

Verse of the Week:  “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”  (Psalm 50:15)

Truth of the Week:  This verse has been floating through my mind a lot lately.  Here is what has struck me:

1)      I was created for the glory of God.  Scripture tells me this is so, time and time again.  I was created to know and enjoy who God is, and to be transformed so that my life displays His image.  My purpose in life is to proclaim His excellencies.

2)      According to Psalm 50:15, one thing that glorifies God is when I call on Him in my times of trouble.  Trusting Him in adversity highlights His fullness and His faithfulness, and reveals Him to be an overflowing fountain of all that I need in life.  Depending on Him, magnifies Him.

3)      Therefore…if I was created for God’s glory, and if calling on Him in times of trouble brings Him glory, then I can be absolutely certain that my life will contain difficulty.  I can trust that God will be faithful to bring trials to my life in order that I might place my dependence on Him and experience the truth of who He is.  In a sense, times of trouble are an arena for me to fulfill the purpose for which I was created.  If my life was all ease and comfort, I would never know God the way He designed me to and desires me to.

I am trying to learn to see times of adversity as evidence of God’s grace and as opportunities to see and to show His glory.  I confess that this does not come naturally to me, but I trust that God will continue to help me grow in this way.  More and more, I pray that my response to trials will be the sweet wine of thanksgiving, rather than the bitter whine of complaining.

Quote of the Week:  “All our difficulties are only platforms for the manifestations of His grace, power and love.”  (Hudson Taylor)

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It is Great to Love a Serving God!

Verse of the Week:  “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you.  I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”  (Isaiah 46:3-4)

Truth of the Week:  While on spring break last week, my family spent some time in western North Carolina.  We stayed in a beautiful cabin (which felt more like a mansion) that was situated on the top of a mountain in a small town.  Each time we left our cabin we passed by a church with a sign out front that said “It is great to serve a living God!”  While I understand the sentiment that was being conveyed, everything in me wanted to stop and rearrange the words just a bit so that it said, “It is great to love a serving God!”

The truth is, we do have a God who serves us.  We like to think that we serve God, but in reality, it is always the other way around. From before we were born until the day that we die, God has promised to take care of us.  Because of His character and because of His unwavering love for us, God has pledged to us His protection and His provision.  Just like earthly parents serve their children by giving them what is best for them, even when it requires personal sacrifice, our heavenly Father has done and will continue to do the same.  Acts 17 reminds us that God gives us “life and breath and everything” – we are utterly dependent on Him for all things.  If He were to cease serving us, we would be without hope.  Actually, if He were to stop serving us, we would be without anything!

God serves us by offering Himself as the answer to our soul’s deepest thirst.  He serves us by making and keeping His promises to us.  He serves us by bidding us to find in Him a rich supply of all that we need and long for in life.  He serves us by pouring His fullness into our emptiness.  He serves us by giving us purpose and identity and fruitfulness.  The truth is, God serves us every second of our lives.  Indeed, it is great to love a serving God!

Quote of the Week:  “God hath in Himself all power to defend you, all wisdom to direct you, all mercy to pardon you, all grace to enrich you, all righteousness to clothe you, all goodness to supply you, and all happiness to crown you.” (Thomas Brooks, A Puritan Golden Treasury)

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