God's Promises

Hebrews 11:18 and 24 – 25

Abraham trusted God that He would provide and that He would be faithful to His promise. We show that we trust God by obeying and praising Him. Obedience to scripture by sharing Christ with others—this is how we trust God. We obey Him, trusting that He will be faithful to His word and answer our prayers, in His good time and His own way. While waiting on God, in trust, we are to live as the salt of the earth, humble and giving (Matthew 5:13). Reach out to your fellow humans, bless strangers, study scripture to know how to respond to the questions of unbelievers (Colossians 4:6), and above all, share the joy you have that is freely provided by our God and King.

You may be a sibling, a parent, a hard-working employee or business owner; you may be rich or poor; you may lead a busy life, one filled with distractions and joys and heartaches, but you must be above all, a Christian.

The most important thing in this world is your relationship with God. It determines your eternity. If this relationship is broken or undeveloped, your relationships with the people in your life and with the strangers you meet will also always suffer. Your failure to put God first, to seek first His kingdom and righteousness, will prevent Him from using you and blessing your neighbors through you the way He wills.

On what do you place your daily priorities? Who or what comes first? How do you spend most of your time? Remember, a spirit of thanksgiving and praise to God can be employed even while you are working on earthly things. Keep your focus on Him and it will amaze you just how powerfully God will use you. First we study scripture to learn how to obey Him, and then we can put those principles to use. A life well-lived is one lived in obedience to God's commands. Know His love and joy, and share these things with everyone He puts in your life.

When you do this, you show you trust Him, and He will be faithful to His promises, which are many and wonderful. God Bless you

Seek First the Kingdom, and God will Provide the Rest

Luke chapter 12 shares a beautiful inspiring message about trusting God.

If you read and study verses 27 through 34 you will find that it is not God's will for His people to doubt or worry or fear. God tends to birds, makes the grass grow, and raises up the lilies into a beauty greater than that of King Solomon in all his glory. So why should those who claim to know God--who claim to believe in His power and love and authority--ever worry or doubt?

Verse 28 points out that if God tends to the grass, which is of little value, won't He take much greater care of those who call on Him? He clothes you, puts a roof over your head, provides work or substance, and repeatedly shields you from a multitude of dangers.

Many great disciples over the centuries, like Ruth Graham, kept journals where they recorded the times when God answered their prayers or simply provided. This is a nice method for teaching us to open our eyes to God's providence in our lives. It is very easy--especially with the devil whispering ingratitude and other evil filth into our ears--to forget all the times God has pulled us from the fire. This was the main problem with the Israelite's in the Old Testament; they would constantly forget all the miracles God had performed for them, all the times He protected them from enemies and hunger and thirst and from their own inadequacies.

Some good king or prophet would finally point out their ingratitude and forgetfulness of God's grace, and they would turn their hearts back to Him, and He would receive them with open arms.

It seems contrary for we 'believers' to doubt. We worry about everything and seem sometimes to believe for nothing. Sure we pray, but is there belief, unshakeable belief in God in your prayers? Verse 29 says: 'And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind.'  Anxiety is prevalent in modern society. It should not be so in the lives of believers. The apostles suffered as much and more than all who have come after them, and yet they were filled with joy, even when they were persecuted, thrown in prison, and facing death for their belief.

They rejoiced, because they had no anxiety, because their hearts were right with God.

Verse 31 says: 'But seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.'
You see, God wants to provide you with the things you need, but of far greater importance to Him is where your heart lies. Is it in Him? Or do you yearn more for the things of this world, and do you seek to satisfy your concerns above honoring your Creator?

The bible makes very clear that the most important concern for believers in this world is their relationship with God. If your relationship with Him is right and proper, if your highest design is to glorify His holy name, then your heart will be right with Him and God will provide.

• Believe and he will provide
• Believe and He will heal
• Believe and He will save

Do not worry about tomorrow. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than them? (Matthew 6:26).

God loves you. His thoughts for you are of peace, to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

So stop doubting like the wandering Israelite's. Stop worrying as if you were an unbeliever. You serve a mighty God. Believe He will do as He promises. Read Mark 9:14-23. Spend time in the Word and in prayer. You cannot add anything to your life by worrying. God calls us to believe, not to lead lives filled with anxiety. Joy and peace are 2 of the Fruits of the Spirit. They are yours for the taking. Choose belief, and God will account it to you as righteousness. Praise God! Amen

Celebrity Pastors and Modern Preachers

Celebrity pastors and modern preachers pander to the masses, peddling God's Word for their own benefit (2 Corinthians 2:17).

Titus 1:10 warns us against false teachers: 'For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.'

 The truth is that many (but not all) modern pastors love the world, love being adored, love praise and the attainment of things; they do not love the sheep. They have been given flocks to shepherd. They are failing their flocks.

Love of the sheep is displayed through obedience of Christ's teachings, through the teaching of scripture and the sharing of Christ (Colossians 1:10). Ask yourself at the end of church service: 'Did my pastor's message increase my understanding of God and His Word?'

They teach through platitudes and modern (non-biblical) quotations, pictures and downloaded sermons approved by the World Council of Churches, instead of being led by the Holy Spirit.

You never even hear of the Holy Spirit anymore.

TIP: You can tell if your pastor is not teaching in line with the Spirit's guidance when he teaches a month or months long program, rigorously sticking to his prescribed message and allowing no room for divine inspiration. He has an agenda, not a message. Jeremiah 10:23 tells us that it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. And yet, modern pastors are choosing their own steps, and by extension they are choosing our steps for us, when we listen without to them without allowing God to open our hearts to the truth.

They put too much of themselves into the lesson (performance), and not enough of God. Their cheesy teachings are designed to appeal to the largest possible all-inclusive group, at the expense of biblical integrity.

The truth is that people who are offended at God's Word are in the wrong, and need to be told so, or they will never be led to repentance. If they don't repent, they will not be forgiven; if they are not forgiven, they will not enter into paradise. Pastors do people no favor by sugar-coating or watering down gospel truths. When he does this, the only person your butterfly pastor is serving is himself, by trying to be friends with the world and not offend anyone.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive, to those who are dying without its truths (1 Corinthians 1:18)!

Today we are no longer led by the morally upright, by shepherds who fear and obey God. Today our teachers are morally bankrupt celebrities, popular facebookers, and megachurch gurus who spout 'progressive' 'all-inclusive' and 'New Thought' philosophies in place of sound biblical teachings and godly living, which means obedience to God's commands.

Unfortunately it seems there is no room for God's will in the modern church.
  
Don't take my word for it. Search the scriptures, for in them you have knowledge and wisdom and power:

• Psalm 10:3-4
• Psalm 39
• Psalm 111:10
• Proverbs 16
• 1 Thessalonians 1:3
• 1 Corinthians 4:4
• Acts 18:21  

So what is a Christian to do? Perhaps you should search for a bible-teaching church. (The very fact that this term exists is a sad commentary.) Perhaps you should listen to old time teachers on line.

The only advice I can give you without reservation and with absolute Christian conviction is to search the scriptures. Spend time in the Word and in prayer, seeking God's guidance, for the help of man is useless (Psalm 60:11). Be cheerful, rejoice, for God is on the throne, and His thoughts for you are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

How to Know if Your Prayers are in Line With God's Will

We are told to pray according to God’s will, and that, believing, we will have what we ask.

And yet the question remains: How do we know if what we pray is God’s will?

As always we will look to scripture for the answer. We know that after the resurrection, the apostles worked in accordance with God’s will. So, what did the apostles pray for? For example, how did they know if asking for a healing would be in God’s will?

Everything they prayed for was to further the kingdom of God on earth, to secure eternal souls for heaven. If what you pray for serves the kingdom—and not just your own desires—then you can be assured that it is indeed in line with God’s will, and that if you pray the prayer of faith—not doubting—then you will have what you ask for in prayer.

Every time the apostles prayed, it was for the purpose of glorifying God, for them to become better servants in the Kingdom. James 4:3

What you seek should be in line with God's will. Your prayers should not be self-seeking, but God-seeking, to bring glory to Him. That is why He created you. It is about God. It is good to know that by seeking His glory, we invite God's grace into our lives. In Jeremiah 29:11 God says 'For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.'

God wants to bless us. By seeking His will, we will find blessings in our lives. God must come first.  

 

This is where the Word of Faith Movement confuses people. Its teachers promote the idea that God’s will is that all His servants live financially prosperous lives, filled with every thing they want. But this is blatantly anti-scriptural. The biblical meaning of ‘abundant lives’ and ‘blessings’ is quite different from the worldly definition.

Matthew 6:24 warns us that we cannot serve ourselves and God.

James 2:5 tells us that God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith.

Hebrews 13:5 commands our conduct to be without covetousness, and for us to be content with what we have.

James 5:14-15 clearly informs us that the prayer of faith will save the sick. God healing people brings glory to God. But He does not hear the doubtful, wavering heart (James 1:6). 'The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers; for the face of the Lord is against those who do evil (1 Peter 3:12). 

Are your prayers filled with self-involved desire? Or are they in line with God's will, designed to bring glory to His name?

Our God is an Awesome God

Sometimes, all you need to do is worship our awesome God to know that through Him all things are possible. Matthew 19:26

Through our daily concerns, we tend to forget this fact. To remember it:

• Meditate on God's word
• Pray
• Lift up your hands and worship Him
• At other times, be silent, and know that He is God

Faith: A Modern Mystery

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made by things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks (Hebrews 11:1-4).

Do you have faith in your Creator?

Faith is everything to the life of a believer. That is why we are called believers. We believe. We have faith in His goodness and mercy. By faith we have what he hoped for. By faith we know what we cannot see: that He exists and that He created the heavens and the earth. We obey by faith, not knowing, but believing that God is there, listening, caring, answering.

It is by faith that we obtain the testimony of our salvation—by His grace (Ephesians 2:8).

So what happens during times of struggle and suffering, the fiery tribulations of which God warned us?

During these times of crisis we often doubt. All our grand and noble aspirations, all our declarations of love and obedience and belief fly out the window, taken up instead by refrains of doubt. Doubt is the seed and work of the devil. Doubt should have no place in a believer’s life. It is the opposite of everything on which we base our faith. It is contrary to the gospel.

It is also a very human reaction.

That is to say, it is a work of the flesh. Throughout our lives God has blessed us with various gifts and knowledge and goods and times of peace and perhaps even prosperity. So when hard times come, we don’t understand why. We allow doubt to creep into our hearts, where it begins to slowly eat away at our faith. Suddenly we forget all that God has done for us, all the gifts and blessings and miracles that He performed again and again and again. We cry out: ‘Why, Lord! Why are you letting this happen?’

When He doesn’t answer on our timetable, we allow doubt to completely consume us. All our thoughts dwell on the ‘what ifs’. Our emotions and faith become mutated by doubt, until they are wholly given over to it, enslaved to uncertainty, to distrust, to disbelief.

Why does God allow these terrible things to happen? Why does He not immediately answer with goodness when we cry out to Him?

Since God’s ways are not our ways, this is a question we cannot fully answer (Isaiah 55:8).

Instead, we should be asking: ‘Help thou my unbelief!’

In Mark 9, a couple of Jesus’ apostles try to help a boy possessed by an unclean spirit. (Can you imagine how distraught the father of that boy must have been?) But the apostles could not cast it out (Verse 18). After lamenting the faithless generation, Jesus responds with this declaration: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible.’ The father of the boy cries out, ‘Lord I believe; help thou my unbelief!’

We, like the father in this story, are plagued by unbelief. But Jesus calmly assures us that all things are possible. ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. If you believe that God created the universe, why should you find it hard to believe that He is in control of your situation?

Do not doubt that God knows what He is doing, and that what He is doing is right.

As for healing in your life, throughout the New Testament Jesus performed all many of miraculous healing. Nothing is too difficult for He. And how did Jesus respond to the doubting people before performing the healing? He lamented their unbelief, calling them faithless. When you doubt, you show that you have no faith.

Jesus is willing and able. He does not want anyone to perish without coming to know Him. And He is always ready to answer the prayers of the faithful. The fervent faithful prayers of a righteous man avails much (James 5:16). Scripture is bursting at the seams with hopeful and inspiring and faith-lifting passages. Read James. Study Mark. Absorb Hebrews 11. All the great men and women of the bible believed and suffered bouts of doubt.

In the end they all came to know: God saves. God still saves. God cares for you and yours. He is waiting for you to trust Him with everything, as everything is His; we are merely entrusted with the blessings.

You are not a sinner if you doubt. But by His grace you are righteous if you believe!

It is in His hands. He can do all things. You need to believe this. What are you waiting for? He has been blessing you your entire life, and now you’re going to doubt His goodness? Just ask yourself this one question: Do I trust that God knows what He is doing?

DO I TRUST THAT GOD KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING?

If you can find your way to YES, I BELIEVE, then all worry and doubt and fear will begin to melt away, replaced by living faith in the Almighty. Savior. Redeemer. Doubt is worthless. Faith moves mountains. ‘Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us’ (1 John 5:14). It is a wonderful thing, to place your trust in the hands of the living God, knowing that He cares for you.

Seek comfort in Psalm 17:7. Also, study Matthew 6:31-33. You will find there everything you need to face your circumstances and trials like a true believer.

Worry, Doubt, and Fear in the Lives of Believers

Do you trust God?

It is a simple question, but not an easy one to answer. We call ourselves ‘Christian’, and yet when the hard times come—as they will for all who seek to live godly lives, 2 Timothy 3:12—we fall victim to fear, doubt, and worry.

These three things rule over our hearts.

This should not be. 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells believers to abide in faith, hope, and love.

Fear. Doubt. Worry.

Faith. Hope. Love.

Which group would you prefer to experience?

The answer, like the question, is simple, but not easy to employ. How do you choose to trust God when your first, natural impulse in a crisis is to worry? When in the course of your life things have often gone south, how do you hope? This is the crux of our faith. And there’s the rub: it is called faith. We are called to believe—not to know. And belief is employed through trust. Trusting in what we cannot see is never easy, but it is always worth it. God blesses those who trust in Him, and our trust and obedience is accounted to us as righteousness (Romans 4:3).

When a loved one is sick, for example, it is only natural that we worry and fear—and perhaps it is even forgivable when we doubt. But we are not called to doubt. We are believers. We are called to believe, to trust in the saving grace of our Savior.

So when the enemy comes to steal away your hope and trust, remember the titans of our faith: Abraham and David, Enoch and Elijah, Noah and Moses and Sarah and all the others. They believed when everyone and the physical world said it was a lost cause. What did Job do when he was told that his children had been killed? He trusted. It seems incredible to our modern sensibilities that a man could trust God after hearing that his children have died. The impulse today is to question or abandon God. But Job chose a wiser, harder path.

He chose to trust that God knew what He was doing.

Read that statement again. Therein you will find the reason for all your worry, doubt, and fear. You do not trust God. You do not trust that He knows what He is doing.

You question Him when tragedy strikes. When bad news comes, your faith falters. You worry about what might happen. You fear that more bad news will come. You doubt that God will make the right choice.

The truth is: God always makes the righteous choice.

It is not an easy thing, as humans, with our limited perceptions and our ideas of how things should go, to accept that God knows best. When He calls a loved one home, or allows a loved one to suffer, it never seems like the work of a loving Creator.

This is why, when trials and persecutions and inexplicable events occur, we need to turn to scripture and be reminded that:

• God is not like us. (Isaiah 55:8-9) ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts. Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’

• The Lord is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works (Psalm 145:17)

•  He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are Justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He’ (Deuteronomy 32:4)

•  In His hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind (Job 12:10)

• God is in control: (Psalm 103:19)

Search the scriptures, for in them you find the path to eternal life, and it is your eternal soul which occupies our heavenly Fathers’ thoughts, and to which He works His gracious will. We have a tendency to see moments with razor sharp focus. Try to realize that God sees all moments—every moment of your life and of the lives of your loved ones. He knows all things. He knows what is right, even if to our narrow-minded way of thinking it seems wrong or cruel.

A hard lesson, true, but scripture does not tell us that ours will be lives of ease. It tells us instead that our eternities will be filled with peace and love, where all suffering is over.

Also find comfort in Isaiah 41:10.

You worry and fear and doubt, which causes stress, which leads to depression and hearts closed to God. Nothing in this world, no ‘Positive Thinking Movement’, ‘no name it and claim it doctrine’, no ‘love yourself and everything will be peachy’ philosophy is going to save you from reality.

Only Jesus saves.

Find Him in the precious word of God, and in prayer. Don’t waste your days worrying and doubting, when we have a heavenly Father who loves us, and a Savior who wants to save us from these things. Fear not, for He is God, and He knows what He is doing. He created the universe, and yet He knows us by name; He has counted every hair on your head. He knows what is right. Accept this and you can find peace in the everlasting arms.

We may not understand His ways, but we can choose to believe that they are right, and thereby banish the worry, fear, and doubt that Satan wants us to embrace.

Be well, beloved. Search the scriptures, and find your way to trusting God.