September 27th - Standing Still

September 27th, 2017 - Thoughts for your Week

Scripture: Deuteronomy 1: 29-30

“Do not be terrified; do not be afraid.

The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you.”

Standing Still

 “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The LORD will fight for you; you have only to be still.”

Exodus 14: 13-14

What does it mean to you when you read that “the LORD will fight for you”? Do you believe it? Does it bring you a sense of peace, or does it feel more like a loss of control? Consider the Israelites as they stood before the Red Sea, hemmed in by the sea before them and the Egyptian army behind them. It must have felt like an impossible situation, but God had a plan to rescue them; they just couldn’t see it yet. When Moses told them; “You will not have to do anything but stay calm. The Lord will do the fighting for you”, I’ll bet none of them imagined He would part the Red Sea and ask them to walk through it.

What are you facing today? What challenge is before you that seems daunting and impossible? Is it possible that your God is ready to fight for you and only requires you to be still? Can you wait on Him until He tells you it’s time to move, and trust Him to meet you in your steps even if you don’t feel brave or strong enough? He always prepares you for what you must face. He will never send you into battle unprepared if you keep your eyes on Him. When we choose to stand still and trust in God who is greater, it releases us from the chains of fear, doubt, and hopelessness. Nothing is too big, too scary, or too much for our God. Ponder these verses of times God fought for His children, and know that He WILL also fight for you, and that He calls you to trust with a childlike faith.

“No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (When Joshua was to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land)

- Joshua 1: 5

You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you. (When Jehoshaphat was faced with war against Moab and Ammon)

-      - 2 Chronicles 20: 17

Even in the waiting He is at work to make you more like Him. Trust the process. Trust Him. Be brave. He won’t let you down.

“But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.  I call out to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy mountain.  I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.”

- Psalm 3: 3-5

“Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from His heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of His right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

- Psalm 20: 6-7

September 13 - Compelled to Move

September 13th, 2017 - Thoughts for your Week

Scripture: Isaiah 45: 2-3

"I will go before you and will level the mountains
I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name."

Compelled to Move

“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

Acts 20: 22-24 

Can you imagine getting to that place in your heart and mind that Paul got to in his faith in God? To be so compelled that no matter what the obstacle and no matter how great the pain, that you can still move forward in faith and hope and strength in whatever God has called you to. I’m wondering if you’re feeling what I felt when I first read these verses; overwhelmed, excited, challenged, perplexed, in awe, curious, maybe a little scared, or a lot scared?

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them. I want what Paul had. I want to be compelled by the Spirit, to be spurred on to greater things that I can’t do on my own; that I can’t even imagine doing. I want to run the race with my whole being, full of passion and willingness to move into the unknown.

You may be at a point in your life where things are not panning out. Life is not going according to ‘the plan’. You may be wondering if God has forgotten you, or maybe He’s made a mistake in choosing you, or allowing some suffering in your life. But our God is not a God that sets us up for failure. He has already prepared you for whatever you are facing. You’ve been in training, perhaps your whole life, for this ‘thing’ He’s called you into. And He expects you to pass the test of it! He expects you to own the suffering, push through the fear, and overcome it with and through Him; all the while bringing glory to His name.

These are intense thoughts for sure, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is no better place than to be tightly nestled next to our Savior; to know that we are wholly loved and cherished, that we are an original creation thought up by a mighty God who has the perfect plan for our lives. That’s what Paul understood about God; that no matter what happened to him, he knew his safety and freedom were founded in Christ.

Where are you in your relationship with Jesus? What is it that compels you? Are you at that place where you can say with conviction that “your only aim is to finish the race at all cost”? As much as it may seem terrifying at the prospect of not knowing what will happen to you, the safest place you can be is in the will of God, in His perfect plan for you. Press into Him and bring every part of yourself to Him. Hold back nothing. Be vulnerable to the point that it aches. I’ll leave you with these verses in The Message version…take some time to read and consider how and if these verses reflect your life…

 “But there is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I’m completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won’t be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.

Acts 20: 22-24 The Message

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in  despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

-2 Corinthians 4: 8-9

August 9 - Drifting

August 9th, 2017 - Thoughts for your Week

Scripture: 2 Peter 1: 5-9

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind,forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.”

Drifting

“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Hebrews 12:1-2

The rest and relaxation of summer can be a wonderful thing, but it can set you to drifting at the same time. It’s easy to get lulled into a sense of idleness or laziness, especially in our walk with God. Something as simple as sleeping in can steal away that early golden hour of quiet with the Lord, and push you straight into the busyness of the day, where it can be harder to find time. That happened to me this summer.

I love that early rising time with God that I have during the school year. It gives me the fuel I need to get through my day in a much better state of mind; with my eyes on Him. But when summer hits and the late nights come, the morning time gets later and later until there’s no time at all. And then I suffer.

D.A. Carson writes; “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” (For the Love of God)

There is absolutely no liberation in drifting, although Satan would have us believe so. As much as a nice sleep in is lovely, pushing myself out of bed at an earlier hour so I get quiet time is so much lovelier. The more I drift in the mornings, the worse my state of mind becomes. The less faith I have. The more struggle I experience. It’s not worth it. I’m not saying never sleep in again! I’m just saying, there is a definite need to stay alert to the things that cause us to drift. We each know what they are for ourselves and they are often subtle. But they lead us down a road that we don’t want to go. And the further we go, the further we go.

Maybe your drift is keeping busy; perhaps a busy work schedule or ministry. Chris Russell states; “One of Satan’s greatest weapons against our generation seems to be his ability to make people busier than ever before. We so often sacrifice the best things in life by spending time doing things that are just “pretty good.”

Maybe you’re drifting through some discouragement right now, struggling through a time of trial. It can cause fatigue and isolation, and a desire to slowly give in to sinful habits that don’t bring nourishment to your soul.

If you are set adrift, know that it is you. He is not moving away from you, you are drifting away from Him. He never changes; we do. He’s always there; we move away. James 4:8 says; “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

Whatever it is that causes you to drift, it will never be as fulfilling as your time spent with Jesus. Know your limits – you know what you need, and press onward towards the prize.

“The marker of those who understand the gospel is that, when they stumble and fall, they run towards God and not away.”

Matt Chandler