The Faithfulness Of God

From: allaboutgod.org

God is so faithful that anyone who seeks Him can find Him. Faith is a gift, but even a gift must be opened to be enjoyed. As we implement our faith, we begin to realize more and more about God’s faithfulness to us.

• 1 Corinthians 1:9 – “God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.”
• 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it.”
• 2 Thessalonians 3:3 – “The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.”

In 1 John 1:9 we are told, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” With absoluteness we can have the confidence that God will forgive us. Without His ability to do so, He would not be God. He is the only true God (John 17:3) and the gods of no other religion promises this. Since He has made this promise, and we know He cannot break His word, we know that it would be contrary to His nature and that He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19). Our God is a faithful God and there is no other that can do all He can and has done.

1. Meditate on God’s promise to be faithful to you.

“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” Numbers 23:19

“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23

2. Now reflect on your own life. Where in your life do you feel unsure? What situations seem to toss your emotions around like a boat in the middle of a storm? Where do you need a firmer foundation today?

3. Ask the Spirit for a revelation of God’s faithfulness in those areas. Ask God to help you trust in his promise of faithfulness. Ask him how he plans on bringing peace to those areas that are disturbing you today. Listen to him as he speaks.

We All Need Help

(People helping others)

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• Devotional by John Piper,desiring god.org

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

Every one of us needs help. We are not God. We have needs. We have weaknesses. We have confusion. We have limitations of all kinds. We need help.

But every one of us has something else: We have sins. And therefore at the bottom of our hearts we know that we do not deserve the help we need. And so we feel trapped.

I need help to live my life, and to handle death, and to cope with eternity — help with my family, my spouse, my children, my loneliness, my job, my health, my finances. I need help. But I don’t deserve the help I need.

So what can I do? I can try to deny it all and be a superman or a superwoman, who doesn’t need any help. Or I can try to drown it all and throw my life into a pool of sensual pleasures. Or I can simply give way to the paralysis of despair.

But God declares over this hopeless situation: Jesus Christ became a High Priest to shatter that despair with hope, and to humble that superman or superwoman, and to rescue that drowning wretch.

Yes, we all need help. Yes, none of us deserves the help we need. But no to despair and pride and lechery. Look at what God says. Because we have a Great High Priest, the throne of God is a throne of grace. And the help we get at that throne of grace is mercy and grace to help in time of need. Grace to help! Not deserved help — gracious help. That’s why the High Priest, Jesus Christ, shed his own blood.

You are not trapped. Say no to that lie. We need help. We don’t deserve it. But we can have it. You can have it right now and forever. If you will receive and trust in your High Priest, Jesus the Son of God, and draw near to God through him.

The Cost Of Following Jesus

Directive

The purpose of this apprenticeship, as Willard often notes, is not to live the life Jesus lived. That has already been done—and we could never be perfect as Jesus was. The purpose is to learn to live your real, present life with all its responsibilities, relationships, and roles as Jesus would live it if it were his.9

How might one get started on the adventure of following Jesus in the twenty-first century?  Begin by asking. Christians often ask Jesus to help them to see him more clearly and to know his reality. This is one way of expressing the desire to learn what Jesus has to teach us about life in God’s kingdom.

Then start to use every means available to learn more about Jesus and to understand his teaching. Reading the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—is a good starting point to come to know Jesus and his ways more fully.

The final step is making a decision. We decide to follow Jesus. We apprentice our lives with him. We commit to listening to him, to obeying him, and to allowing him to shape our lives.

No one follows Jesus perfectly. But over time, the disciple begins to reflect his master’s influence.

Luke 9:57-62

The Cost of Following Jesus

57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”

But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”

62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

What Does Carry Your Cross Mean?

By Lisa Bevere, messengerinternational.org

Have you ever asked yourself what it looks like to carry your cross?

This phrase—one you may know well—comes from an instruction Jesus gave His disciples:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Matthew 16:24 ESV

Perhaps you have heard this verse before. But have you ever personalized it? It’s important to know that the cross you take up is unique to your journey. You’ll need to answer some questions about the cross to know what yours looks like and how to carry it.

When I considered this directive recently, I found myself asking some essential questions: What exactly is Jesus asking me to carry? Where do I find my cross? How do I know if I’m carrying it?

If you are like me, you may initially answer, “I don’t know!” I have written on the cross many times, but there was a season when it seemed I couldn’t even locate mine, let alone define it.

Then one day, I polled a social media outlet to gather some single-word descriptions of the cross. In the end I tallied more than five hundred responses including:

As I reviewed the list of words so many were kind enough to volunteer, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, “Behold the cross. All of these words and more represent the cross. Carry these with you into your everyday world.”

My eyes retraced the list in my trembling hand. It was true! The cross provides all that it won, just as Jesus provides all that He is!

Through the cross, Christ purchased us love, forgiveness, freedom, and redemption. It was time I carried all I had experienced to others. Each of the words in my list captured some essential element of the cross that needed to be expressed in the world.

The cross I carry is all that Jesus has done for me, just as the cross you carry is your gospel, or witness, of what He has done for you. But it doesn’t stop there. We are containers that pour out heaven’s precious gifts. Paul describes it this way:

We carry this precious Message [of the cross] around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives.
2 Corinthians 4:7 The Message

We do not filter the gospel; we just carry it. In this way the extraordinary is transferred within the confines of our daily “ordinary.” Each day I take the hope, love, and forgiveness of the Cross with me to the grocery store, on the plane, and to the office. I carry it everywhere my life takes me. These are the places where I offer the power and wonder of the cross.

Dear friend, there is a hurting world all around you that needs what you carry. What has Jesus done for you? That is the cross you are to take up and carry into your world.

What if each day we prayed, “Heavenly Father, may everything that the crucifixion of Your Son provided gain full expression in and through my life today”?

Our world would see Jesus lifted up.

Let’s commit ourselves to carrying the wonder of the cross!

God Gives Strength

 By: Dale Fletcher

This post about strength in God is an updated post that originally occurred in February, 2008. In light of current events in our country, I’m re-posting this in hope that the content might help you.

During such tumultuous times as we are in today in the United States – with the economy and the government shutdown – we are looking for strength and resolve. Life can be a challenge, but in times where our nation is in an upheaval, the stressors can be especially difficult to handle.

Maybe you don’t know how to apply the new Health Care law to your life. Perhaps you’ve made plans to visit a national park and now find that it’s closed for business. Maybe you’re a Baby Boomer and you’ve just entered into retirement. Could be that you’re making a major transition in your life.

Are you weak? Stressed? Battling depression? Do you need more energy to run this race of life that you’re in? Is your strength depleted? God can help. Fortunately, our Creator gives us many scriptures that relate to how we can have strength in God. A verse about strength that is very familiar to many people is below.

“He (God) gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak…. But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength“ Isaiah 40:28-31

That’s one of this weeks scripture about strength. What a reassuring message! Life can make us weary and challenging… it can deplete us from the strength we need to get out of bed and do the things we are required to do. Yes, we can work out by lifting weights and taking our fitness walk. Those activities can provide us a level of fitness that enable our bodies to function physically, yet we also need additional inner strength to be able to function well. Since our mind, body and spirit are interconnected, how we feel spiritually or emotionally can effect or physical energy level. That’s where God can help.

A meaningful and personal relationship with God can give us inner energy and strength that can sustain us. Engaging in spiritual exercises like prayer, reading the Bible and abiding in God’s presence can help us tap into special power that only God can provide. When we are alone with God… when we “wait” on him, we are able to receive his strength. When we believe and trust what we read in scripture and in how God works, our hope is bolstered. This strong belief and hope, grounded in scripture, can give us strength. It’s the same strength that the Psalmist writes about in Psalm 138:3 when he says “As soon as I pray, you answer me; you encourage me by giving me strength.”

There is another key biblical principle to consider regarding strength. In his writings, Paul reminds us how we can be strong when we are weak. This might seem like an oxymoron but because it’s biblical, it’s true. When we are dependent upon God, when we surrender to him, when we rely on him and ask Jesus to live his life through us, we’re actually living by his power and strength. You see, if we try to be strong in our own might, we don’t give God the opportunity to use his strength as he lives through us.

“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10

So, I’ll ask the questions again – Are you weak? Is your strength depleted? Do you need more energy and power to run your race?  Curl up on a couch or your recliner or drop to your knees and spend some one-on-one time with God. open up your Bible and read some of the scriptures about on the lists I’ve provided below. Get to know Him better and see if He doesn’t bring you more inner strength.

Cry out for healing

 

From: Bibleinoneyear.org.

Hosea 6:1-7:16

God wants to bring healing to our lives.  The people knew that if they truly returned to God, he would heal them (6:1).  ‘Unless we receive a miracle, all healing is a process that takes time, especially emotional healing.  Healing does not come easily and can be quite painful.  Sometimes we have wounds that are still infected, and before we can be thoroughly healed, those wounds must be opened and the infection removed.  Only God knows how to do this properly.  As you seek God for the healing from your hurts, there are two main things you can do to facilitate the process: spend time with God in His Word and wait in His presence.  I guarantee you will find healing there!’ writes Joyce Meyer.

If we want God’s healing, we need to cry out to him from our hearts.  God’s complaint against his people in this passage is that, ‘Instead of crying out to me in heartfelt prayer, they whoop it up in bed with their whores’ (7:14, MSG). 

The first three verses of chapter 6 appear to describe the painful process by which the Lord restores us to himself when we slip away from him.  However, there is no acknowledgment of sin or deep repentance. 

It may be Hosea putting the people’s shallow confession into words.  ‘Your declarations of love last no longer than morning mist and predawn dew’ (6:4, MSG).

What is clear is that God is interested in the heart, not superficial action: ‘For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings’ (v.6).  As The Messagetranslation puts it, ‘I’m after love that lasts, not more religion.  I want you to know God.’  He is concerned about a relationship with him that comes from the heart. 

His complaint is that ‘none of them calls on me’ (7:7).  There is an arrogance, an independent spirit in humankind that refuses to ‘return to the Lord … or search for him’ (v.10).  He says, ‘they have strayed from me! … They have rebelled against me!  I long to redeem them … but they turn away from me’ (vv.13–14).  He longs for them to cry out to him from their hearts’, but they do not turn to the Most High (vv.14,16).