Tag Archives: hard times

November 10, 2015 · 5:30 AM

The Law Of God’s Grace

  
One of the things I like to tell people is that the greater the grief, the deeper the sorrow, or the harder the trial, the greater amount of God’s grace you will experience. God gives us grace sufficient for our trials. When Paul was faced with a trial that God wouldn’t remove after much prayer, God spoke to him in II Corinthians 12:9. He said, “My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]” (AMP).

God gives grace, favor, strength, and mercy according to our need. He knows what we are facing and what we need in order to bear the weight of our situation. You’ve heard of Newton’s Third Law, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” To me, it is the Law of God’s Grace. For every force or trial that comes against you, there is an equal amount of Grace to support you. God gives you enough grace to enable you to stand in times of sorrow and tests.

Paul wrote about this Law of God’s Grace in Ephesians 4:7. He said, “Yet grace (God’s unmerited favor) was given to each of us individually [not indiscriminately, but in different ways] in proportion to the measure of Christ’s [rich and bounteous] gift.” Each of us receive a different portion and type of God’s grace according to our need. It is proportionate to our circumstance and is given as a free gift to us. That grace that God gives is tailor made for us because He knows what we are facing and cares for us.

The greater the trial, the greater the grace. I’ve hit rock bottom in my life, but I’ve never found the bottom of God’s grace. It is deeper than anything you or I will ever face. It will always be sufficient to your need. When you go through deep struggles, you get a glimpse of God’s grace that few people ever do. The longer you endure hardship, the longer you can remain in the crucible, the deeper your knowledge of God will be and the firmer your trust in Him will be. The Law of God’s Grace proves He will not fail you when you need Him most.

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October 21, 2015 · 5:30 AM

You’re Not BER (Video)

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Romans 5:8 (NLT)

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September 11, 2015 · 5:30 AM

Words Of Comfort

Life can be very unpredictable. Things can be going well and then the rug gets pulled out from under us. I heard someone say, “All people are in one of three places: in a trial, coming out of a trial or heading for one.” Life is a series of ups and downs. No one gets to stay on top of the mountain forever, no matter what they say on social media.

In my own trials and tests, these scriptures have brought me comfort; I hope they do the same for you.
  
1. From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me. 

Psalm 61:2-3 NLT

2. May the Lord himself, who is our source of peace, give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you all.

II Thessalonians 3:16

3. When I walk into the thick of trouble, keep me alive in the angry turmoil. With one hand strike my foes, With your other hand save me. Finish what you started in me, GOD. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now. 

Psalm 138:7-8 MSG

4. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their distress and troubles. 

Psalm 34:17 AMP

5. Be brave. Be strong. Don’t give up. Expect GOD to get here soon. 

Psalm 31:24 MSG

6. God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. 

Psalm 46:1 NASB

7. I sought (inquired of) the Lord and required Him [of necessity and on the authority of His Word], and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. 

Psalm 34:4 AMP

8. The righteous person faces many troubles, but the LORD comes to the rescue each time. 

Psalm 34:19 NLT

9. Call to me when trouble comes; I will save you, and you will praise me. 

Psalm 50:15 GNB

10. My mind and my body may grow weak, but God is my strength; he is all I ever need. 

Psalm 73:26 GNB

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May 27, 2015 · 7:06 AM

Psalm Of The Living

I’ve never understood why Psalm 23 is solely used at funerals. I believe it is a Psalm for the living. David didn’t write it for a deceased friend. He wrote it to thank God for being his guide in this life. David’s path had twists and turns, ups and downs just like yours and mine.looking back on his life, he realized where God had been right with him in the hardest of times and when God had brought rest when he needed it most. God still does that today for you and me. Let’s look closer at this Psalm today to see how it applies to our lives.

When the first verse says that the Lord is our shepherd, it’s implying that we need someone to feed, guide and protect us. Sheep need help pretty often. The shepherd doesn’t get upset with the sheep for messing up or getting lost. He goes after them and brings them back to safe pasture where they can flourish. It’s a great image of what God does for each of us when we wander away from the path He has for us. He searches for us and returns us to where He wants us and can protect us from the enemy.

I like how the Message puts the next couple of verses. It says, “True to your word, you let me catch my breath and you send me in the right direction.” God knows that there are times in life when we get so busy that we need a break. He intervenes in our lives constantly trying to take us to those still waters causing us to lay down. He wants us to catch our breath and rest from time to time so we won’t burn out. When we’ve caught our breath, He points us in the right direction and sets us loose again.

Sometimes that path goes through the darkest of valleys, but we don’t have to be afraid. The New Living Translation says, “I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.” God doesn’t abandon us in the darkness of life. He’s right beside us enduring it with us. When we are in the valley, he is there with his rod and staff to protect and comfort us. He’s not way out ahead of you in the sunlight saying, “Come on! Hurry up and get here.” No. He’s right there with you in the darkness, by your side saying, “I know you’re hurt and I feel your pain. I won’t leave you here in this place.”

In verse five, the Message says, “You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing.” No matter who is against you or what life brings in the valley, God has a plan. He has times of refreshing ahead for you. He gives you what you need to sustain you in those times, then He takes you to place where you will know joy once again. He revived our heavy hearts and lifts our spirits. When we look up, we will see that our cup full of blessings is overflowing with God’s goodness. We don’t have to feel forgotten or lost because God still gives blessings in the darkness of the valley.

David wrapped up this powerful Psalm by saying, “I know that your goodness and love will be with me all my life. (GNT)” He knew because God had been faithful to him. He could trust God because God had never let him down even in the valley. We too can know that God’s love and goodness will be with us all the days of our lives. The New Living Translation says that God’s goodness and unfailing love will pursue us. He will not stop being with us or pursuing us with His love in this life. So you see, this is a Psalm of the living more than the dead. God is with you right now no matter what part of the path you’re on. Trust in Him and His plan. He’s watching over you like a good shepherd. 

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April 21, 2015 · 7:06 AM

Turbulence Is Good

 

 On a recent flight, the pilot said there was turbulence ahead and that he was going to try a different altitude. We lowered several thousand feet and hit turbulence there. He lowered some more and we hit turbulence there too. He went up some and we started hitting turbulence there. On our whole flight, he was readjusting trying to miss the turbulence, but he was unsuccessful. No matter what we did, we kept hitting these bumps in our path. He finally came over the intercom and said, “As you can see, we are not going to have a smooth flight today. I’ve tried everything and we’re still finding these pockets. We won’t be able to go as fast as we wanted.”

The pilot, like many of us, tried to avoid disturbances in our path. He tried different things to get around them and couldn’t. Our first instinct when there’s a disturbance or turbulence in our path is to try to find a way around it, but is that really God’s desire for us? Are we to avoid problems and things that slow us down? I don’t think so. I dislike them as much as anyone, but I’ve learned they serve a purpose. I may not always see the purpose right away, but I’ve found that God uses them to shape who we are and to change our course. The path God has for us isn’t an easy one.

Jesus was preaching in Matthew 7:14 when He was talking about the path you and I should be on. He said, “But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it. (NLT)” The Amplified version said it is “contracted by pressure”. That doesn’t sound like we are going to be able to avoid the bumps and have a smooth ride into Heaven. In John 16:33, Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble.” Jesus was pretty open to us about what life will bring as Christians. He said we would struggle, suffer and have tribulation, and also that He would not leave us in those times.

My nephew likes to say, “No pressure, no diamond.” He’s learning at an early age that pressure can be a good thing. It’s what brings out the best in us. God uses pressure pockets in our life to develop qualities that won’t develop any other way. He uses it to have us change altitude and course so we can be put into the path of someone who needs our help. There is a purpose and a plan for the turbulence in your life. To avoid it is to avoid what God wants to do in you and through you.

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January 28, 2015 · 7:15 AM

Spiritual Progress

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Growing up, I was a huge Michael Jordan fan. I used to watch the Slam Dunk contest and then try to duplicate him on our neighbor’s adjustable goal. My room was covered in posters and my feet were covered by his shoes. I watched “Come Fly With Me” almost every day. It highlighted the early part of his career. There was a scene in there that I remember well. Early in his second season with the Bulls, he broke a bone in his foot. It put him out most of the season. The video talked about his dedication to getting better and showed videos of him working out. One image still sticks with me. He was walking through a pool with his shoes on.

In order for him to go on in his career, he had to strengthen his foot. They put him in a pool and had him walk through it as fast as he could while slaloming. The water in the pool provided resistance and that resistance is what gave him strength to go on. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I get it. I’ve seen God use the same “therapy” in my life and in other’s too. He provides resistance to make us stronger than we are, but we typically just want out of the pool.

Habakkuk 3:19 says, “The Lord God is my strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make spiritual progress upon my high places of trouble, suffering or responsibility! (AMP)” We get weak and break down when we forget that God is our strength. We are defeated when we fight our own battles instead of allowing Him to use His invincible army. We hunker down and stay still instead of moving when we are controlled by fear or pain. But God wants us to move forward in those times.

He knows that resistance makes us stronger. He understands that we need to make spiritual progress no matter what is in front of us. The Scripture didn’t say that we make our own feet like hinds’ feet. It says He does that. We are the ones who have to be willing to let Him. We have to take those steps of spiritual progress in the tough times. We have to push through the waters in order to grow our strength. God is for you and is using the difficult times to give you the strength to endure.

Here’s another one of God’s promises to you. Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you go through the deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. (NLT)” The rivers of difficulty aren’t fun, but they are necessary to give us strength. We can push forward and rely on God’s promise that He is with us during those times and that He will not let us drown. Your spiritual progress is important to God. Keep walking through that river and hold your head up. God is working in you.

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December 11, 2014 · 7:46 AM

The Promise Of Joy

I’ve often heard that joy is not circumstantial, but happiness is. To many of us, the two are the same. I believe that happiness is an external expression as a result from a feeling. Joy, on the other hand, is what creates hope and optimism even in the face of circumstances that tell you otherwise. Joy is what gives us the strength to put one foot in front of the other, to breathe in and breathe out and to get out of bed when all we want to do is curl up and cry. Joy gives us peace in troubled times.

The Bible speaks a lot about Joy. In one instance, Job had been faced with great loss to his family, finances and health. Things got so bad that his own wife told him, “Curse God and die!” She had let the circumstances steal her Joy. She saw no way out of the situation. She had no hope for the future. She was mad at God, mad at life and mad at her husband. She couldn’t understand why her husband still held onto his faith in God in such trying times. It just didn’t make sense.

I’ve found that a lot of life doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why things happen the way they do. I don’t pretend to know why God doesn’t answer my prayers the way I pray for Him to. Just because He doesn’t, I shouldn’t stop praying. I shouldn’t grow bitter against Him. I shouldn’t sever our relationship. It’s easy to do those things in the midst of a trial if you don’t have Joy. It’s easy to want to quit, renounce your faith and walk away because you’re mad at God. But Job proved that you can go through unimaginable pain and maintain your Joy. Was he sad? Yes. But even in his sadness, he did the hard thing. He held onto Joy.

I’m sure he began to wonder why he was holding onto it after a while. I’m sure over time the situation, the questions and longevity of his trial began to wear on him. During that time, a friend named Bildad came to encourage him. In Job 8:21, he reminded Job of who God was and what He promised His people. He said, “He (God) will once again fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” He reminded Job that the circumstantial sadness was only temporary.

I believe that verse is God’s promise to us today. He will once again return laughter and joy to your life no matter what your circumstances have brought you. I love Psalm 30:5. It’s very familiar to lots of people. You’ve heard it read as, “Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning.” I especially love how the Message puts it. It says, “The nights of crying your eyes out will give way to days of laughter.” Circumstances will tell you those days will never come, but Joy says it’s on its way. That’s a promise from God.

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December 5, 2014 · 7:35 AM

10 Scriptures On Trusting God

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1. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. (John 14:1 NLT)

2. Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. (Proverbs 3:5 AMP)

3. But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” (Psalm 31:14 ESV)

4. It pays to take life seriously; things work out when you trust in GOD. (Proverbs 16:20 MSG)

5. But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. (Psalms 13:5 NLT)

6. Trust in the Lord. Have faith, do not despair. Trust in the Lord. (Psalms 27:14 GNB)

7. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. (Isaiah 26:4 ESV)

8. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:9 NLT)

9. [Most] blessed is the man who believes in, trusts in, and relies on the Lord, and whose hope and confidence the Lord is. (Jeremiah 17:7 AMP)

10. “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. (John 3:16-18 MSG)

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September 3, 2014 · 7:38 AM

Choosing A Foundation

When my wife left me for someone else, my business collapsed and I had to file for bankruptcy I struggled emotionally. I was hurt and depressed. People would say to me, “Time heals all wounds.” That isn’t what I wanted to hear because at that point, time felt like my enemy. I couldn’t see 5 or 10 years down the road yo when time would heal my wounds. I was fighting just to make it through a day or a night. Each day seemed to bring more bad news and things were compounding. Time seemed to be against me more than it did to offer healing.

I retreated to a routine to help me cope. I pulled back from people so I couldn’t get hurt. I did everything I could think of to keep my mind busy so it wouldn’t plot my demise or someone else’s. I didn’t want to be alone, but I also didn’t want to have to interact with people. I carried such a heavy weight on my shoulders that I became emotionally, physically and spiritually tired. I got to the point where I just collapsed on the floor and wept. I told God that I couldn’t do it anymore.

At my breaking point, I found mercy and grace. I found that it’s ok to be weak. It’s ok to be broken. It’s ok to hurt. In those feelings were reminders that I was human. I realized that I had done everything in my life in my own strength and in my own power for my own glory. When the flood came in, it washed everything out. I had become the foolish builder that Jesus talked about in Matthew 7:24-27. I had built my life on a foundation of sand and when the storms came, it collapsed like a house of cards.

Looking back, the good news is that it gave me the opportunity to rebuild the way God wanted me to build. I learned to give my pain and problems over to Him. I learned to build a life on a foundation I could count on. I began to spend time looking up God’s promises. I found out what it meant to really trust Him. I began to pick up my life piece by piece. I left behind the pieces that weren’t beneficial to my spiritual health. I quit going to places that hurt more than helped. I stopped hanging out with friends who held me back and found new ones who would lift me up.

Time didn’t heal all my wounds, but it afforded me the ability to rebuild the right way. I’ve still had rain, floods and tornados in my life since that time, but my life hasn’t crumbled like it did before. God’s word has secured me through them. I’ve had to make repairs, but I haven’t had to rebuild because a life that is built on trust in God’s Word will stand through storms. I’m not saying I’m perfect or that life is awesome all the time. I’m saying that I know who to run to in a storm. I know how to board up the windows when a hurricane is coming. I know God personally and have a deeper understanding of His Word because of what I went through.

If you haven’t been hit by a devastating storm yet, there’s still time to check your foundations. There’s still time to get rid of the things that aren’t from God. If you’re in the storm or have been hit, don’t let the enemy tell you it’s over. God is still there willing to share your burdens and will help you rebuild from the ground up. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. I can tell you that with God’s help, you will survive and you will rebuild. Choose the foundation of God’s Word to build your new life on. Before long, time will no longer be your enemy and your life will be put back together the way God wants it.

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August 19, 2014 · 7:57 AM

Free In The Fire

One of my favorite Bible stories when I was a kid had to be of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The King ordered that everyone bow down to his golden statue when they heard the music played. Of course the three Hebrew boys refused to do it. The king summonsed them and ordered them to bow or to be thrown into a furnace. They told him to his face that they wouldn’t do it. He got so angry, he heated up the furnace seven times hotter than normal, bound their hands and feet and had them thrown into it,

The fire was so hot that the men who were throwing them into it died. When the men didn’t return right away, the King went to look. He turned and asked the people around him, “Didn’t we throw three into the fire?” The people around him said, “That’s right.” He replied, “But look! I see four men walking around freely in the fire, completely unharmed. And the fourth one looks like the son of the gods!” He then called out to them to come out of the fire. When he examined them, not a hair was singed nor did they smell like fire.

Many times in this life you and I will feel like we are bound up. There are times when we feel like we are in prison. Our hands and feet are shackled. We feel like we aren’t going anywhere and we can’t do anything. Being physically tied up is bad enough, but to be mentally or spiritually tied up is worse. It’s a real feeling of helplessness. When you couple that with walking through the fires of life, it can make things feel hopeless. Even in those times, we are to trust in God and His plan.

These three guys were not alone in the fire. In fact, it was in the fire that they were set free from their bondage. The scripture says they were walking around freely in the fire. God did not abandon them in the worst of times. He was standing there with them. It reminds me of the promise He makes to you and I in Isaiah 43:2. He said, “When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end – because I am your God, your personal God.”

That’s a promise you can hold into when you’re walking through deep waters, between a rock and a hard place or in the fire of oppression as the New Living Translation puts it. That version says, “You’ll not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” It goes on to say He won’t let any of these things destroy you because you are precious to Him. He gave His all for you. He loves you and will not let these present circumstances destroy you. He says you can walk freely in the fire. Trust in Him. He will not let you down. When you come out on the other side, you won’t be burned.

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