Tag Archives: encouragement

March 5, 2019 · 5:52 AM

Participating With God

When God called to Moses from the burning bush in Exodus 3, He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground” (NKJV). God then asked Moses to return to Egypt where the Lord would perform miraculous signs and wonders. Moses argued with God and gave excuses as to why he couldn’t speak to Pharaoh. Eventually, God convinced Moses. He then spoke to Pharaoh, God performed 10 plagues and the Israelites were set free from their bondage because of the things God did.

Fast forward 40 years and Israel is finally permitted to enter the Promised Land. They cross the Jordan and begin to prepare to attack Jericho. While Joshua is surveying it, the Lord appears to him in Joshua 5:15 and says, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” Did you catch the difference? When Moses met God, he had to remove both sandals. When Joshua met with Him, he only had to remove one. I believe it’s because with Moses, God was doing all the work, and with Joshua they were going to work together to subdue Canaan.

I believe God wants you and I to participate with Him in living an overcoming life. We can’t sit back and wait for Him to do all the work. You and I are going to have to step out and face some giants. We are going to have to attack some walled cities in our life. The great news is that God will fight our battles if we’ll have enough faith to get onto the battlefield. If we’re going to live An overcoming life, we’re going to have to quit making excuses and letting fear make our decisions. If God is for you, who can be against you? It’s time to quit camping by the Jordan and to fight for the land God promised you.

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March 4, 2019 · 5:53 AM

Chasing Your Dream

What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail? What dream would you go after? So many times fear of failure or being defeated is what holds us back from chasing after the things God put in our heart. Back in the early 2000’s, I started writing devotionals. There were no blogs really, and social media was yet to come. I figured I would just email them out to friends and whoever wanted them. I asked about five people if they’d be interested. One person replied, “Please don’t put me on any list. I get enough junk mail as it is.” I didn’t write for 10 years after that. I quit chasing after something God put in me because of something someone else said.

After the Israelites left Egypt, God reminded them that He had promised them land. It was a good, beautiful, fertile land, but they would have to fight to take possession of it. They were guaranteed victory if they were willing to fight for it. Instead 10 of the 12 spies came back confirming what God said about the land, but they were afraid of the giants and walked cities in the land. It took forty years before they had an opportunity again. This time, the spies were told how fearful everyone was of them, and it boosted their confidence. In Joshua 2:24, they reported back, “The Lord has given us the whole land for all the people in the land are terrified of us” (NLT).

The only thing that changed was that they quit listening to fear and started listening to God. That’s exactly what you and I need to do. No, it won’t be easy. Yes, there will be some struggles and battles ahead when you chase after what God has put in you, but you are guaranteed victory in the long run. God is ready to act on your behalf, but you have to be the one to step out in faith to chase after what He called you to. As my friend says, it’s time for you to smash fear in the face! The enemy is afraid of you doing what God told you to do so he uses fear to hold you back. The Lord has given you victory. You just have to step out and claim it.

Photo by Jordan Donaldson | @jordi.d on Unsplash

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March 1, 2019 · 5:20 AM

Never Alone

Autophobia is the fear of having to deal with the difficulties of life all by yourself. More and more this is becoming the greatest fear people have. People have hundreds of “friends” on social media, yet they still feel alone. Virtual friends can offer words of support (if you let them know you’re struggling), but that’s not enough. We want someone to be by outside in moments of trouble. We don’t want to face our problems alone, so much so that it is becoming one of the world’s top fears.

Several years ago, I felt abandoned by everyone, including God. I was at a church service and the pastor said he had a message from God for one person in the room. The message in part was, “I have not abandoned you. I see you in this storm. I am right beside you walking with you through this.” God relieved my autophobia that He had left me alone to fight my battles. I can tell you with certainty that He has not abandoned you either,. He’s there with you now. He sees what you’re going through, and He’s walking through it with you.

Here are some Bible Verses on God’s promise to not abandon you.

1. Turn away from evil and do good, and your descendants will always live in the land; for the Lord loves what is right and does not abandon his faithful people. He protects them forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be driven out.

Psalm 37:27-28 GNT

2. It is the LORD who goes before you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or abandon you. Do not fear or be dismayed.

DEUTERONOMY 31:8 AMP

3. The Lord will not reject his people; he will not abandon his special possession.

Psalms 94:14 NLT

4. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for you.

Psalms 9:10 NLT

5. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.

Jeremiah 29:10-11 MSG

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February 28, 2019 · 5:47 AM

Hope Returns

There have been a few times in my life when I’ve been desperate for hope. When I was in my early twenties, my mom was in ICU at the M.D. Anderson cancer center. I remember we were living in that holding room for families. Each family in there lived day to day desperate for good news. Some families got it, but most of us didn’t. We were tired, exhausted, mentally drained, and were looking for a ray of hope that might mean our loved one would walk out of there.

To be without hope is a dangerous place, yet so many of us live there. Our lives seem to have no future, and we just want something we can believe in to brighten up the darkness a little. The writer of Lamentations was there too. He was in a desperate place having lost everything. As he recounted his trouble in chapter three, he then wrote in 3:21-22, “Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue” (GNT). His hope returned when he took his eyes off his situation and focused on God.

I love what he goes on to write in verses 25-26. He says, “The Lord is good to everyone who trusts in him, So it is best for us to wait in patience—to wait for him to save us—.” God sees us in our hopeless darkness. Looking back, He used hopeless times to shape me and to polish me. Trusting God when you can’t see a future is hard, but be patient. The Lord is good and is working things out for your good. Hope will return because God has not forgotten you.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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February 27, 2019 · 5:54 AM

Getting Unstuck

At one of the lowest points in my life, I felt like I had failed at everything. I began to believe that I was a failure as a person, and I had forgotten who I was. I went to a bar so I could forget about what was going on inside of me. An old friend walked in and saw me sitting there. He said, “Chris Hendrix?!? What are you doing in here?” I told him what all was going on in my life and how I felt. Afterwards, he stood up and said, “You’re not the Chris Hendrix I know. That Chris would have never given up on life. He was someone I looked up to and that challenged me. I’m not going to sit here and see you like this. You’ve given up, and you’re stuck in a rut.” With that, he walked out.

That was a wake up call to me. When he said that, it resonated in my soul, and for the first time in months, I saw me with my old eyes. He was right, I had forgotten who I am. As I looked around the bar that night I realized I was in a rut going nowhere. I had been crushed and defeated so I began to identify with something that God didn’t put in me. The words he spoke to me gave me the strength to walk out of that bar and out of that place in my life. Things didn’t get better overnight, but that was the start to me moving back to identifying with the person God created me to be.

If you’ve forgotten who you really are and have been identifying with something God didn’t put in you, call out to Him today. Ask Him to remind you who He created you to be and to put people in your path to speak life into you. Psalm 138:3 says, “At the very moment I called out to you, you answered me! You strengthened me deep within my soul and breathed fresh courage into me” (TPT). God can speak deep into your soul and wake up the parts of you that you thought had died. He’ll give you the strength to get out of your rut to begin the process of returning to your true self, the person He created you to be.

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February 26, 2019 · 5:52 AM

Loving God For Real

Several years ago I read a book called “Primal” by Mark Batterson and it wrecked me. It was based on Deuteronomy 6:5 that says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and mind and with all your soul and with all your strength [your entire being]” (AMP). It’s a verse we all know that Jesus said was the greatest commandment. Think about that. Everything in the Bible, all the wisdom, all the lessons, all the do’s and don’t’s are below what this commandment says. The most important thing we can do with our lives is to love God with our entire being.

In the book he described how loving the Lord with all your heart is about having a heart filled with compassion for the things God is compassionate about. Loving Him with all your mind is about having a holy curiosity to know who God is. Loving Him with your soul is to love Him with a sense of wonder and awe that once wowed you about Him. Finally, loving Him with your strength is about being energized to do things for Him because He excites you. As I read those, it hit me, I wasn’t loving God in all four areas. I was good in some and just ok in others. That wasn’t ok with me.

God didn’t command us to love Him in one or two of these ways. We must love Him in all four. The call to the Church of Ephesus in Revelation 2, goes out to us. We must return to our first love. We must reignite the passion we once had. God is calling us to step out of the complacency of our relationship with Him so we can serve and love Him with everything in us. If we’re going to change this world, it starts with you and getting our relationship with God right first. Search over this verse today and ask God to show you what areas you’re missing the mark in. After you repent like I did, start doing something about it. We all have room to grow and get our love for God firing on all four cylinders.

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February 20, 2019 · 5:58 AM

The Grasshopper Complex

Have you ever felt like you weren’t smart enough, spiritual enough, good enough or just enough? Self doubt is something each of us deal with at some point whether we want to admit it or not. It comes up at the most inopportune times too. Whether you’re going to an interview, a date, a meeting with a group of people or just looking in the mirror. How we feel about ourselves often makes us feel inadequate, and that holds us back from so many things. It shows up in our actions, our body language and even facial expressions. It’s usually rooted in comparing the worst part of ourselves to the best part of someone else.

When Moses sent spies into the Promised Land, 12 men saw the same things, but 10 of them let how they felt hold back a nation for 40 years. In Numbers 13:33, they said, “We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!” (NLT) Did you catch that? They compared themselves and felt small. They lost sight of who they were and forgot that they were created in God’s image. Even though the Lord had promised them this land, they chose how they felt over the Word of God.

When we compare ourselves to others, and allow self doubt to creep in, it holds us back from our own promised land. When those thoughts of inadequacy arise, remember Philippians 2:13. It says, “For it is [not your strength, but it is] God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure” (AMP). You will always be enough through the power of God in you. You are the temple of His Holy Spirit and He is at work in you to be enough for whatever you face. Push out the lies of comparison and self doubt and replace those thoughts with the truth of who God says you are.

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February 19, 2019 · 6:02 AM

God’s Supply

After the Israelites left Mount Sinai and were headed to the Promised Land, they grew tired of the Lord’s provision of mana. They began to complain about it to each other and then openly. They wanted meat. They began to fantasize about the meat they had in Egypt while they were slaves. The Lord told moses that He was going to provide meat for all of Israel, not for a day or two, but for an entire month. He said He would provide so much meat that they would get sick of it. God was upset that they were rejecting Him and longing to go back to their old life.

After the Lord spoke this to Moses, he struggled to believe God could provide that much meat. He reminded God how many people they had, how little meat their food resources were and where they were. I love God’s response in Numbers 11:23. He said, “So, do you think I can’t take care of you? You’ll see soon enough whether what I say happens for you or not” (MSG). The next morning so many quail descended on the Israelites that no person took home less than 50 bushels of meat. God went above and beyond what Moses could comprehend.

The question to us is: Are we looking at our problem, with our resources, in our situation wondering how God is going to come through? Sometimes God uses what we have, but don’t limit Him in what He can do. Don’t you think He can take care of you? Remember, Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God will liberally supply (fill until full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (AMP). God can multiply what you have or supply your need out of His supply. Trust God to meet your need. He can take care of you. Just believe.

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February 15, 2019 · 6:01 AM

Fight For Your Faith

I have a friend whose ministry is called Rational Defense Of Faith. His ministry is holding multimedia presentations in churches that give believers the facts they need to defend their faith. He discusses what arguments atheists, evolutionists and others bring up and how to ask questions that doesn’t destroy them, but rather causes them to think differently. Many people have come to the Lord through him and others who have equipped themselves with the truth of God’s Word and scientific facts.

I’m not advocating that we go out and pick fights with people, but each of us should be ready to defend the faith within us. The world is becoming increasingly more bold in its attacks on faith. It’s up to each one of us to understand God’s Word, His world and to get power from prayer. 1 Peter 3:15 tells us that we should always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope in us. We do that by putting on the Belt of Truth each day. Our faith is worth fighting for, but we need to do it in such a way that it leads others to the cross rather than further away.

Here are some Bible Verses on Fighting for your Faith.

1. Fight the good fight of the faith [in the conflict with evil]; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and [for which] you made the good confession [of faith] in the presence of many witnesses.

1 TIMOTHY 6:12 AMP

2. We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NLT

3. Dear friends, I’ve dropped everything to write you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting—begging!—that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish.

Jude 1:3 MSG

4. Put on God’s complete set of armor provided for us, so that you will be protected as you fight against the evil strategies of the accuser!

Ephesians 6:11 TPT

5. Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong.

1 Corinthians 16:13 NLT

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February 14, 2019 · 5:00 AM

Choosing Forgiveness

When you’ve been hurt by someone, you can either forgive them or you can hold a grudge. Holding a grudge makes you look at the chain reaction of what they did to you, and then blame them for how you ended up where you are. It creates “if / then” statements in your mind: “If they hadn’t done that to me, then I wouldn’t have been in this miserable place in life.” Anything bad that happens in your life gets blamed on them. Your mind becomes consumed with how bad things are, and you create a perpetual cycle of a downward spiral.

When you forgive someone for hurting you, you set your mind free. You no longer give that person power over you and the direction of your life. You are no longer consumed by the bitterness that creeps into every area of your life. You no longer dread waking up each day, and your perspective changes. You can look back at that moment and see how God used it to get you where you needed to be. You also quit despising the life you have, and begin to see it as a blessing.

If anyone ever had a reason to hold a grudge, it was Joseph. His brothers beat him, threw him in a cistern, and sold him as a slave. That event took him away from all he had known. His freedom and all he had were taken from him in an instant. He was accused and spent years in prison because of their betrayal. Bitterness could have linked it all together and made him hate his brothers. Instead, he chose forgiveness, and God blessed him for it.

Forgiveness is about remembering we aren’t perfect ourselves. We make mistakes and hurt others too. God wants us to give people room to make mistakes and then to forgive them. Colossians 3:13 says, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (NLT). If you’ve held onto a grudge towards someone because they’ve hurt you, let it go and forgive them. Quit giving them control of your life and your mind. I’ve found that when we choose to forgive and give it to God, the things that have hurt us the most often become the things God can use the most effectively.

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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