February 8, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Hidden Paths

  
Whenever I think about the plans God has for me and where I am, I don’t see how I can get there from here. I can see how the things I’m doing now are preparing me for that calling, but o can’t find the way to get there. I’m constantly looking for the path that takes me from this road to that one. I know I’m not alone in this. I talk to many people who tell me the plans that God has shown them scares them. Those plans are too big for them or me to accomplish on our own. So how do we get there from here?

As I was reading in Psalms recently, I came across a verse that helped me. David was faced with a similar situation and he couldn’t find the way out. He remembered how the Israelites were trapped at the Red Sea and had no way to get to where God was calling them to. They had Pharaoh bearing down on them, they were at a dead end, and had no where else to go. In that moment, God parted the sea and showed them the path.

Psalm 77:19 says, “Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters— a pathway no one knew was there!” (NLT) The path God has for you to get to your calling maybe hidden in a sea. You may not know where it is, but God does. You can rest assured that when the time comes, God will part the waters and show you the path. Until that time, stay faithful where He has you. What you’re doing now is preparation for what’s to come. 

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February 5, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Just Stay Calm

  
Exodus 14 gives the account of the Israelites leaving Egypt and getting to the Red Sea. In verse 8, it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he chased after “the people of Israel, who left with fists raised in defiance” (NLT). As they walked out of town, they had their fists up in celebration and in victory. For 430 years they had been there. God had finally heard their cries and came to their rescue.

That victory stance suddenly changed when they saw Pharaoh and his army bearing down on them. They went from a victory mindset to a victim mindset in an instant. They quit celebrating and started bellyaching. They complained to Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness?” They are like so many of us who forget what God has already done for us. We lose sight of the past in light of the present. We are all guilty of doing this at times.

Moses spoke to them words that we need to hear when our faith turns into fear. Verses 13 and 14 say, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the LORD rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. The LORD himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” Great words spoken by God to us in whatever we are facing. Don’t be afraid. Watch the Lord rescue you. The Lord will fight for you. Just stay calm. I believe God is trying to tell us the same thing.

I don’t know what you’re up against today, but it’s no match for what God can do. I don’t know how trapped you feel, or how much your back is up against a wall, but if God can part the Red Sea, He can make a way where there seems to be no way. Your situation only seems big because it’s out of perspective. Yes, it’s huge compared to you, but next to God, it’s pretty small and not that complex. Don’t be afraid. Just stay calm. God is already working on your behalf. Trust Him to do what only He can do. 

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February 4, 2016 · 5:48 AM

The Sides Of God

  
One of the most fascinating things about God is that once you think you have Him figured out, you find out you don’t. There are so many sides to God that we will never be able to know them all. I find it interesting that He chooses to reveal Himself in different ways to us. In the Bible, He did the same thing. That’s why there are so many names in there to try to describe Him. To Hagar, He was the God who sees me. To Abraham, He was the God who provides. Throughout the Bible, and today, He continues to reveal Himself to us.

In Exodus 6:3 God told Moses, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty [El-Shaddai], but by My name the Lord [Yahweh–the redemptive name of God] I did not make Myself known to them [in acts and great miracles]” (AMP). God was telling Moses, “There’s more to me than you will ever know. I’m not only powerful, but I redeem my people as well. Now you’re going to see me reveal myself through signs and wonders.”

The plagues that were brought on Egypt weren’t done for Egypt’s sake. They were done to show Israel how powerful their God really was and that Moses was the man He had chosen. Before the plagues, they wouldn’t listen to Him. Even after the first several plagues, he didn’t get much respect because the Egyptian magicians could copy what God was doing through Moses. Then God started showing off. The plagues began to only affect Egyptians and not the children of Israel. God does the same thing for us today. He tries to reveal Himself to us in our situations.

God continues to try to get our attention. He is trying to make Himself known to us so we will trust Him in our lives. He is Jehovah Nissi, God who gives us victory. He is Jehovah Shammah, God who is there for you. He is Jehovah Rapha, God who heals you. He is Jehovah Shalom, God who gives you peace. Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble” (NLT). He is a God who is ready to help you in whatever you’re facing. Look for Him today to be who you need Him to be in your situation. 

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February 3, 2016 · 5:52 AM

The Jonah Effect

  
I’ve known many people in my life who have followed the call of God only to return when hard times hit them. I call it the Jonah effect. The thought process goes like this. If they really were following God’s call then they would see whole cities saved as Jonah did when he finally went to Nineveh. They go, they show up, and everything works out perfectly. However, when they’re faced with constant obstacles and apparent set backs, they feel like they went the opposite direction from God’s will. Therefore, they feel they need to quit and go back to square one.

Think about Moses for a minute. I think we can all agree that in Exodus 3 and 4, God called him to go to Egypt and set His people free. So why didn’t Pharaoh just release them the first time Moses asked? Why did Pharaoh make their workload harder? Why did the people whom Moses was trying to get set free urn on him? Because there will always be resistance when you’re in God’s will. The enemy is unwilling to just surrender territory he has built strongholds in.

When you and I face obstacles and challenges while following God’s voice, we shouldn’t turn around and go back home. We should stay and fight the spiritual battle in front of us. We need to put on the spiritual armor that God laid out for us in Ephesians 6. We need to be prayed up and dressed for battle expecting a fight whenever we are following God’s call. We shouldn’t expect an easy road just because we are following God’s call.

More often that not, those obstacles in our way tend to be people. Moses had Pharaoh, David had Saul, Elisha had Jezebel, and you may have someone too. I think it’s important to remember that Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places” (NLT). The people who stand in our way are not the enemy. We must fight the enemy who is behind the scenes if we are going to win the victory. It may take some time and a lot of effort, but God called you to that particular battle for a reason.

Don’t be like so many who run when there’s trouble. Don’t fall for the Jonah Effect. If you’re facing resistance, and it appears that people are blocking you from accomplishing God’s will, look behind the scenes. Your battle is not with that person or people. Your true battle is with the enemy behind the scenes. Fight on your knees, but still show up to accomplish God’s will day in and day out like Moses did. When he faced resistance, he went back to God each time looking for help. Moses fought his way to victory and so will you if you don’t get discouraged and turn around.

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February 2, 2016 · 5:30 AM

A Humble Heart

  
James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor” (NLT). When James wrote these words, he had read all the stories in the Old Testament and knew how God operates. God has always had a special place for those who have a humble heart. Take Moses for example. He was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, yet somehow he was a humble person. He didn’t think of himself as being above the Israelite slaves.

When God asked him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses’ response was very telling. In Exodus 3:11, Moses protested, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?” He was so humble, he didn’t jump on the opportunity to lead his people to freedom. He didn’t ask what was in it for him. He didn’t ask God for a signing bonus. Instead, he didn’t think he was worthy of the task and asked God why would He choose him.

God looks for people who are humble to use for some of His greatest work. He knows that the more humble the heart, the less chance for pride to interfere. Humility seeks God’s will while pride seeks its own. One way to humble yourself is to have a realistic look at your talents and to compare them to the task God has for you. Very quickly, a humble person will realize they don’t have what it takes and will ask what Moses did: “Who am I?”

When we are humble enough to to know we are incapable of doing great things on our own, then we are in just the right mindset to be lifted up by God. James 4:6 tells us that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. That grace He gives is what gives us the sufficiency to accomplish His will. That grace keeps our pride in check and our heart in line with His. If we will learn to be humble like Moses, God will lift us up and honor us by helping us accomplish things we could never do on our own.

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February 1, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Strength And Peace

  
There are two things I find I need most often: strength and peace. There have been so many times I cry out to God, “I can’t do this on my own anymore. I don’t have the strength to go any further.” I always wonder if God gets impatient with me in those times. I wonder if he says, “Again? When will you learn?” I know that the joy of the Lord is my strength, but I somehow allow my situation to steal that joy which leaves me weak and vulnerable.

David must have felt this way pretty often as well. When I read the Psalms, they don’t always line up with this bad to the bone warrior I’ve built up in my mind. They often show an insecure person who struggles with his situations. It’s in conflict with the mental image I have of him, but the truth is, they show someone just as human as the rest of us. They show an accomplished person who loves God, but still relies on Him for everything.

I like being a self sufficient person. I like not needing to have to have help, but those are not qualities God admires. David was known as a man after God’s own heart. He was a man who wasn’t afraid to cry out to God for help all the time. The things that I think make him appear weak are the things God finds as strengths. We were not made to fight our battles on our own. We were not made to fight alone. We were not made to be self sufficient. We are to find our strength and sufficiency in Him.

In Psalm 29, David talks about how powerful the voice of the Lord is. He writes great acclamations of God, and then he finishes with a truth that is very relevant to us. In verse 11 he says, “The LORD gives his people strength. The LORD blesses them with peace” (NLT). Strength and peace are gifts from God. To act like we don’t need them is to deny God from giving them to us as blessings. David had it right. We need God’s strength and peace more than we care to admit. If we are willing to get over our pride and to ask Him for them, He is willing to give them to us.

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January 29, 2016 · 6:56 AM

The Path To The Promise

  
Have you ever tried to right your wrongs? Have you tried to do two good things for every bad thing you’ve done? Have you tried to play God in situations? We’ve all interfered with things thinking, “This is what God wants. Maybe He’s been waiting on me to do it.” So we stick our nose where it doesn’t belong and we try to do what only God can do. We try to enforce God’s will in a situation only to make it worse.

Abraham tried it with Hagar. He knew that God was going to give him a child, but he couldn’t see how. To me, that’s the most dangerous territory we can find ourselves in. When we know what God’s will is, but we don’t see the path to the promise. In those moments, we often try to do God’s work for Him. We improvise and innovate in order to make what God said co e true when we think it needs to. Why? Because we are impatient.

I imagine David felt this way too. It had been declared to him that he was the next king of Israel, but his best friend’s dad was the king. There was no path to the promise. As Saul hinted him down, David had the opportunity, on more than one occasion, to kill Saul and to inherit the kingdom. But David didn’t do what Abraham and so many of us do. He didn’t make his own path, he waited for God’s path to open up. What made him different?

I believe the answer is in many Psalms, including Psalm 19. In verse 13 David prayed, ” Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I could take over your work” (MSG). David prayed often that God would keep him from doing what only God can do. He asked God to keep him from deliberate sins. He used the power of prayer to ask God to help him live the way God wanted him to. In return, he got the patience to wait for God’s plan to work itself out without him messing it up.

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January 28, 2016 · 6:37 AM

Obedience In The Silence

  
Since I was a child, I have heard the story of King Saul in I Samuel 13. The army of Israel had won a small skirmish with a Philistine garrison. The Philistines then mustered an army several times the size of the Israelite army. As they waited for battle, fear crept into the Israelite camp. Men began to desert the army. Those that remained were visibly afraid. Saul looked around, saw their fear, and then checked the calendar. Where was the prophet Samuel? He had said he would be there by now.

As he watched more troops leave, he decided decisive action is what was needed to keep the troops. Verse 9 says, “So he demanded, “Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings!” And Saul sacrificed the burnt offering himself” (NLT). Wouldn’t you know that as soon as he finished with the burnt offerings, Samuel showed up. Saul realized that he jumped the gun. He ran to Samuel hoping to smooth things over, but Samuel wouldn’t hear it. He explained what a foolish thing he had done, and now God would take the kingship from him.

For me, this story is a reminder to stay patient when doing what God asks. If we let our circumstances dictate our obedience, we will fail and miss out on the blessings of God. It’s hard enough to stay obedient when God is silent, let alone when your circumstances show your obedience isn’t paying off. The easy thing to do is make assumptions, but assumptions often lead to disobedience. If God asked you to do something, you must keep at it until He says, “Stop.”

I Samuel 15:22 says, “But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.” Whatever God has called you to do, obedience to that calling is most important. Your calling may seem small and insignificant. It may lack the spotlight that you want, but it is a valid calling. Don’t ditch it to do something more spiritual. God has you doing exactly what He wants you to until He’s ready to give you more. Stay obedient in the silence and God will reward you in due time.

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January 27, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Tested Faith

  
I don’t know if there’s a Christian alive who hasn’t gone through a difficult time and wondered why people who are outright evil don’t appear to be suffering. You try to do everything God asks and follow all the rules, yet there is someone in your life living in outright rebellion to God and nothing ever happens to them. It’s unfair. It’s unjust. Why should the godly suffer when we are the ones who try to do right? Shouldn’t God bless us because we are his followers and curse them?

I’ve been caught in that trap before. I’ve questioned God’s decision to allow me to suffer while others enjoy life’s greatest blessings. At times, I’ve felt like my life was worse than Job’s. In the midst of my suffering, I’ve wondered if anyone ever had it as bad as me. I allowed myself to wallow in self pity. It didn’t get Job anywhere, and it certainly didn’t get me anywhere. God didn’t even seem to notice my pity party. I thought, “Maybe I should just live how I want since living right hasn’t gotten me anything except this pain.”

When we act on those thoughts, we fail the test God has given us. I’ve found that God only tests those worthy of taking it. Everything Job went through was a test to prove that he wasn’t righteous only because of his blessings. God was showing that his faith didn’t rely on his health or possessions. It relied on his trust in God even when God was silent during the test. It relied on who He had found God to be in the good times. It didn’t get distracted in the storm.

True faith gets tested. True faith trusts God even when we can’t see Him or feel Him. It’s understandable that we want to compare ourselves to others who aren’t living right, but we are to trust in God no matter what. Psalm 40:4 says, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods” (NIV). We are blessed when we can keep our eyes on God in the midst of chaos. We pass the test when our trust in God outweighs our circumstances. We need to realize God is testing us because we are worthy of being tested. 

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January 26, 2016 · 4:30 AM

Eternal Works

  
On one of my trips to Haiti, Rubens, one of our translators, told our group about the great earthquake of January 2010. He talked of the sights, the sounds, and the smells of that tragic day. As we stood on the edge of the burial ground where over 100,000 are believed to have been buried, he shared how bodies were dragged to the street where dump trucks picked them up and dumped them where we were standing. He then said, “In this field, there are rich people and poor people. There is no difference when you are dead.”

Those words and that story have always stuck with me. As I was reading in Job 21, I was reminded of them. In verses 23-26, Job said, “One person dies in prosperity, completely comfortable and secure, the picture of good health, vigorous and fit. Another person dies in bitter poverty, never having tasted the good life. But both are buried in the same dust” (NLT). Someone later said, “Death is the great equalizer.” When we die, these corruptible bodies go back to the dust which they were made from.

Where this body ends, eternity begins. I Corinthians 15:53 says, “For this perishable [part of us] must put on the imperishable [nature], and this mortal [part of us, this nature that is capable of dying] must put on immortality (freedom from death)” (AMP). We will shed these bodies like a cocoon and put on our incorruptible bodies. What we have done in our time on earth will be put through fire. Only what’s been done for the glory of God will last. Anything that’s been done for ours will burn.

We are here but for a short time. Our time should not be spent trying to build our own legacy. The things we do for ourselves will burn in that fire like wood or hay. Hebrews 9:27 says that it is appointed that each of us will die and then face judgement. Even Christians will face a judgement in Heaven. We are not exempt. Our words, our deeds, and our actions will be tried. Paul said if a believer’s works are burned up, they will still be saved, but only as someone who barely escaped hell. Today is a great day to do something to advance God’s kingdom in this temporary world. What we do in this life matters in eternity. 

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