Trusting in the Lord

Matthew 6:28-30 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Imagine the lilies blowing in the breeze around Jesus, the Master Teacher, as He used the beautiful flowers to drive home this powerful point—God cares enough for the grass of the field to provide it with color and beauty. Don’t worry, He will provide for you.

The promise of God is to provide us with exactly what we need. I get a little peeved with people that think and claim He gives us the desires of our hearts as if it was due them. I have trouble with that because I think they forget that scripture also says in Psalm 37:4-6 ESV Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

There are some action verbs in that scripture which require our attention. Delight yourself in the Lord… Commit your way to the Lord… trust in Him…

Delight yourself in Lord doesn’t mean to sit around making a list of the ‘desires of your heart’ that you want God to provide as if He was Santa Claus. It means we fall in love with the Lord and want what He wants for us. Our will starts lining up with His will for us and we want His will in our lives more than anything else.

Commit your way to the Lord means your living and thinking lines up with His precepts and sensibilities and your old ways of living for yourself, doing what you want to do in your earthly ways falls off and no longer entices you away from the Lord. Friends, scripture tells us that temptations and trouble will always be a fact of life as long as we are walking in out ‘earth suits’ but it also tells us that God will always provide a way out of temptations for us…it’s up us to make godly choices.  

Trust in Him is easy enough to say we do but do we really? Trusting in the Lord means waiting on His timing instead of insisting on our own. I’ve learned the hard way that His schedule for my life is far better than me insisting on pushing ahead of God and doing it MY WAY. Trusting in Him means believing He will provide what we need, not necessarily what we want. There is a huge difference. Do you trust Him to know what you need?

Father, thank you for the love and care you have for your children. Help us to worry less and trust more. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Teach Us, Lord

Matthew 11:28–29 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Do you ever think much about the personality of Jesus, what He was like sitting around the fire at night or walking the roads with the disciples and the others? In the scripture above, Jesus tells us what He was really like; humble and gentle. “Finding rest for your soul” is just not possible in someone demanding, sarcastic and self-absorbed. Jesus was none of those things. He was concerned with everyone else…that’s why He came in the first place.

Romans 15:2 "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification."

Be honest. How often do you think about others ahead of yourself? If you are completely honest, your answer is probably, "Not often." Jesus, in His ministry, was completely others centered. Everything He spoke and did was for the edification of others. The world we live in is completely focused on 'self', and Christians have bought into it. Jesus, on the other hand, said: Mark 8:35 "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."

Jesus should be our model for living. We should be like Jesus and be 'others centered' and 'others focused'. We should give our lives away. It is the key to life and what Jesus told us to do. Like a lost key, many Christians will look past it without picking it up. Gandhi once said, "I like your Jesus...I don't like your Christians." If the church at large would live out what we say we believe, this world would be a different place and people would be clamoring for Jesus. Is Jesus your model for living? What do you need to change in your life to accurately portray a life sold out for Jesus?

Let's start by asking the Lord to give us a heart and passion for serving others and being more like Him as we go through the work day, interact with other in the grocery store, and spend time with our families at home. With Jesus as our model for our behavior, we will show others about Him. What a great legacy to pass on in our families!

What are You Thinking?

Psalm 73:1 “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling”.

Today I am sharing some thoughts and wisdom from an encouraging and timely devotional I read this morning. It was written by Tony Evans. Pieces and parts are my words intermingled among his.

There will be days when you find that you just don’t feel like worshiping God. Perhaps the temptation to compare yourself to someone else has caused you to feel down and even depressed. Driving home from work on Friday, you tell yourself you are glad the week is over because it has been a rough one. As you lament over how tired you feel, satan blindsides you with the thought that your coworkers do not really appreciate you.

By the time you open the front door of your home, your eyes have narrowed and your forehead has tightened. You decide your family doesn’t know or appreciate all you do for them either. You are frustrated and ready to give up. Still, you do not pray and ask God for His perspective. You just keep repeatedly thinking through the day and rehearsing your negative feelings and look for something, anything to numb you to your reality. Saturday morning you get up feeling haunted by the same emotions. You start to resent all the things you need to at home, too. The demands just keep piling up! By Sunday you force yourself to drive to church, but you certainly don’t feel like singing or praising God.

Asaph, the author of Psalm 73, would understand your plight. He allowed discouragement to grow in his life to the point where he was deeply disturbed. The key word in the last sentence is ‘allowed’.

Whenever we take our eyes off of God and His faithfulness, and begin to compare our lives with those around us, we either end up feeling defeated or prideful. God has created each one of us for a unique purpose, which includes worshiping Him.

Psalm 73 is a rambling account of what Asaph was feeling, but by the end, he realizes the truth and puts an end to his negativity. “As for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all (of) Your works” (v. 28).

Sometimes God seems so far away that you can’t talk to anyone else but Him—because nobody else will understand what in the world you are talking about. The closer you are to God, the less likely the enemy will have a shot at your emotions. Stay focused on what God has for you to do. You are His beloved child, and He has an amazing plan for your life. Will you praise Him for this?

Joshua 24:15  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors (work*) served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods (the flesh*) of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

*Italics - I added

God is Still in Control

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

God is still in control. God is still in control. God is still in control.

That five word phrase, simple and straight to the point, is one of the foundational blocks of my faith and strength. GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL. It doesn’t matter what else is going on around us, God is still in control. The evening news spews bad news daily but God is still in control. Our health may become shaky and scary but God is still in control. Our finances may be non-existent but God is still in control. Our family and friends may have turned their backs on us but God is still in control.

I can’t count the hours, days, years of my life that I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to solve my problems, trying to figure out something to make a bad situation better. I believed in God, called myself a Christian and yet, I never felt the peace and security I have since I let that little five word phrase soak into my heart, mind and spirit. God is still in control.

My body has ‘issues’…God is still in control. I figure if He is allowing it to continue in my life, He has a purpose and reason for it and will use it to His greater glory somehow. That’s all I need to know. I do my part to take care of the body He gave me and He does all the rest. It makes no sense to me to sit around whining about it all the time since God is still in control.

I will be the first to admit I have times where some things in this world give me pause and I feel weak against them. My weakness is not the issue, I am not in control. We feel weak against those things that hover over us…we usually feel the weakest over things which we have no control. Shout it aloud with me…God is still in control…we don’t have to be. What a burden lifter that it!

Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”

Cowboy or Sheppard?

John 10:27: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

What exactly does it mean to ‘follow Jesus’? Sounds like a pretty basic question but I think we sometimes lose sight of what following Christ means.

In our western world we see cowboys moving a herd along by riding behind them, ‘driving the herd’ and they only ride up ahead if some of the cattle or sheep start to stray from the direction they desire the herd to move.

In the eastern part of the world, as well as in Biblical times, the Sheppard walked in front of his herd and they followed. Sound familiar? The words of Jesus in John 10:27: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

As Christians, we can far too easily move in any direction we want, all that ‘free will’ stuff, you know. Once we have decided, in all our sophisticated and worldly wisdom, what we want to do we ask the Lord to bless it…whatever IT may be. We like to think that calling ourselves Christians means God will bail us out of whatever mess we get ourselves into…after all, we asked Him to bless our mess, didn’t we?

In that regard, we are no more following Christ than a herd being driven are following the cowboy. The old saying about ‘getting the cart before the horse’ comes to mind. We are putting ourselves before Christ when we make decisions and plans or take actions or behave the way we want before taking it up with the Lord. I can look back on some of the things I wanted or did on my own and it makes me shudder to think how arrogant I was to think I knew what was best.

I don’t think we have to ask the Lord if we should choose Del Monte or Van Camp canned peas; He did offer us common sense and wisdom to think, but how we live, how we worship, how we serve Him, how we behave and speak…those are biggies.

We know more about how the Lord would have us live by reading and studying His word. We are to live and walk and talk more and more like Jesus as we grow as Christians. Take a moment to stop and reflect back on yesterday alone. Did your actions and words reflect Christ or worldly man/woman? Were you following Jesus or bolting off like a wayward bull hoping He would come running if you fell off the cliff?

Something to think about….