“For there is nothing that God cannot do."
Luke 1:37 (GNT) Never let an impossible situation intimidate you. Why? Because nothing is impossible with God. The Bible says, “For there is nothing that God cannot do” (Luke 1:37 GNT). Instead of being intimidated by a seemingly impossible situation, let it motivate you—to pray more, believe more, trust more, wait more, expect more, and depend on God more. It doesn’t matter how impossible a situation may seem; you can be certain that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Philippians 1:6 NIV). What God starts in your life, he will finish. Hudson Taylor, a missionary from the 1800s, said this about God doing the impossible in our lives: “There are three stages to every great work of God; first it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.” But Satan doesn’t want you to believe that nothing is impossible with God. He’ll tell you over and over, “Who do you think you are? You can’t do that. What makes you think you can be a man or woman of God?” When you believe and trust God for the impossible in your life, it’s an embarrassment for the Devil. Maybe you’re in what looks like an impossible situation right now. Look to God and rely on his promises, and watch your situation move from impossible to possible—and then to done.
0 Comments
“I will go home to my father and say, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.'"
Luke 15:18-19 (NLT) The closer you get to God, the more he will transform your life. Throughout Scripture, we see transformed lives. When Isaiah got close to God, he was transformed from being depressed to standing courageously. When Paul finally met Jesus Christ face to face, he was radically transformed from a persecutor of Christians to spreading Christianity throughout the Roman world. And as Moses grew closer to God, he transformed from a privileged son of Pharaoh to a humble man leading God’s people out of Egypt. Jesus told a story about transformation—the story of the prodigal son. It’s a story of spiritual transformation, about getting close to God after wandering away. Here’s the short version of the story. A young man takes his inheritance and wastes it on careless living. Then, when things go from bad to worse, he finally says, “I will go home to my father and say, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant’” (Luke 15:18-19 NLT). The prodigal son reminds us of our tendency to wander away from our Father who made us and loves us. But more than that, his story reminds us of God’s faithfulness, forgiveness, and compassion. When the son returned home, his father saw him from a distance and “ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20 NLT). This is how spiritual transformation begins. The moment you say, “God, I’m tired of living the way I’ve been living,” he runs out to meet you. He takes the initiative. He even celebrates, like the father did with his prodigal son: “Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him . . . We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life” (Luke 15:22-24 NLT). You may be closer to God than you’ve ever been before. Or maybe you’re feeling like the prodigal—you’ve wandered away and need to renew your relationship with God. No matter where you are—near or far—you can get even closer to God and experience transformation in your life. Your Heavenly Father is always ready to deepen his relationship with you, ready to greet you with open arms, and ready to bring transformation into your life. “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ."
1 Corinthians 12:12 (NLT) God never meant for you to go through life on your own. He wants you to be part of his family—the church. In fact, the church has been God’s plan from the very beginning. Some people think of the church as a building, an institution, or an event you attend. The church isn’t any of those things. It’s a family you belong to. The Bible says, “His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And he did this because he wanted to!” (Ephesians 1:5 TLB) When you’re part of the church, two things are true of you: You’re committed to Jesus, and you’re committed to the people in your church family. The Bible says in 2 Corinthian 8:5, “First they gave themselves to the Lord; and then, by God’s will they gave themselves to us as well” (GNT). You give yourself to the Lord, and then you give yourself to a group of people in God’s family. The first choice makes you a Christian. The second choice connects you with other believers. Together, we are the church—the body of Christ. What does it mean to be part of the body of Christ? The Bible says, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12 NLT). To understand how the church operates, look at the way God designed your body. Your hand, nose, spleen, and liver are all parts of your body. They all have separate functions, but together they make up one physical body—just like God’s church makes up one spiritual body. That’s why you are such a necessary part of your church family. You can’t say, “My part—my talents and abilities—isn’t needed.” There are no unnecessary parts. We are all dependent on each other, and each of us has a different role to play. God’s intention “from the very beginning of time” is that we live our lives together in his family. “Be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.”
1 Peter 3:8 (NIV) Do you want to maintain harmony in your home and reduce the number of conflicts in your relationships? Then be sensitive and empathetic to how your words and actions affect others. The Bible says, “Never do anything that might hurt others—Jews, Greeks, or God’s church” (1 Corinthians 10:32 NCV). This principle of being sensitive to when people get offended is more important than ever, because it seems like everybody’s got a chip on their shoulder these days. We all get offended easily, and we all offend others easily. The solution to that in relationships is to pour grace into any situation so that you aren’t so easily offended—and then to become sensitive about the things that hurt or discourage others. Imagine how your relationships could change by simply doing those two things! But it requires that you admit you’re often insensitive to the impact of your words and your actions. Can you admit that you’ve sometimes been insensitive to your spouse or that you’ve not been empathetic to your colleague or that you’re just not as thoughtful as you think you are? It’s easy to quickly think of five things that other people do to offend you. But can you name five things you do that offend your spouse, friend, or co-worker? If not, then you can always ask them. They’ll be glad to tell you! Being more sensitive will also help you obey the Bible in another area. Jesus said in Matthew 5:25, “Settle matters quickly with your adversary” (NIV). This is a principle you need in every relationship in your life. To resolve conflict more easily and quickly, you need to do two things. First, think before you speak. Second, focus more on listening than on getting your point across. It’s human nature to first think of how you are offended rather than of how your words and actions affect others. But maintaining harmony requires you to be empathetic instead of defensive when you hurt someone else. “Be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble” (1 Peter 3:8 NIV). Harmony and empathy will always go together. If you want one, you have to have the other! “Let us concentrate on the things which make for harmony, and on the growth of one another’s character.”
Romans 14:19 (PHILLIPS) Do you want to become an agent of harmony and unity in your church? If so, the first step is this: Focus on what you have in common with other Christians, rather than your differences. The Bible says, “Let us concentrate on the things which make for harmony, and on the growth of one another’s character” (Romans 14:19 PHILLIPS). When you concentrate, you focus and give something your full attention. You don’t casually concentrate; it’s intentional. As a Christian, you can choose to concentrate on commonalities—the things that create harmony and unity in the body of Christ. What are the commonalities that you share with your brothers and sisters in God’s family? Ephesians 4:4-6 says that Christians share seven big things in common: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (NIV). We’re one body. Jesus doesn’t have multiple bodies. He just has the church! We have one Spirit. We all have been given the same Holy Spirit at salvation. We share one hope. We share the hope of the second coming of Jesus. He didn’t stay dead. He was resurrected, went back to heaven, and promised to return. We have one Lord. We don’t worship multiple gods. We have one faith. Our faith is contained in one book, the Bible. We have one baptism. We don’t have to be re-baptized every time we sin. We have one God. He knows all things, sees all things, and is with us at all times. As members of God’s family, we also share the same salvation, the same forgiveness, the same grace, the same mercy, and the same future. These factors are far more important than your gender or race, your shape or size, your economic status, your background, your sins, or anything else. Even while you focus on those seven big things in Ephesians, don’t forget that God didn’t just give you things in common with the other people in your church. He also made your differences. God chose to give people different personalities and equipped each person with different gifts. You can unite around the foundation of the Gospel, while you also value and learn from all the ways God made you unique. Don’t just get along with the people in your church. Work toward true harmony and unity as you remember the hope you share. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
Psalm 51:10 (ESV) One day, God had a message for a prophet named Jeremiah. He told him to go to a potter’s house and watch the potter make clay pots. As Jeremiah watched the potter molding and fixing the clay, he noticed something: “Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot” (Jeremiah 18:4 The Message). After Jeremiah saw this object lesson, God gave him a message for Israel: “Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you” (Jeremiah 18:6 The Message). You may have really made a mess of your life. Your “pot” is scarred from poor decisions that you made and things that were done to you. As a result, your life has not turned out as you intended. But you are the clay; you’re not the potter. God is the potter, and he doesn’t discard clay that’s been misshapen by circumstances. He doesn’t waste the pain that you’ve been through. God doesn’t throw out the personality and the essence of who he created you to be. Instead, he takes every part of you—the good, the bad, and the ugly. He puts it all in his gentle but strong hands. And then he starts over with shaping your life, applying pressure at just the right places to mold you and remake you into a beautiful, priceless piece of art. That’s what happens when you surrender yourself completely to God’s loving hands. God specializes in fresh starts. You can have a new beginning today, simply by starting with King David’s prayer in Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (ESV). It’s never too late to start over. Bring whatever chaos is in your life to God, the Great Potter. Trust him to do a new work in your life. “Happy are those who . . . find joy in obeying the Law of the LORD, and they study it day and night. They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.”
Psalm 1:1-3 (GNT) If you want to change your life, start by changing the way you think. Changing your thoughts is the key to a fresh start in any area—a hobby, a career, a relationship, marriage, or parenting. Ephesians 4:23 says, “Be continually renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh, untarnished mental and spiritual attitude]” (AMP). What is a renewed mind? It means you have fresh thoughts and fresh attitudes. It means you take your wrong attitudes and thoughts and surrender them, letting “God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect” (Romans 12:2 GNT). You renew your mind by doing two things: First, listen to God’s Word more than the world. The Bible says, “Happy are those who . . . find joy in obeying the Law of the LORD, and they study it day and night. They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do” (Psalm 1:1-3 GNT). Would you like those characteristics to be true of your life? If so, then meditate on God’s Word every day. Second, think about what you think about. Instead of automatically accepting every thought you have, challenge your thoughts. When you have a thought, ask questions like: Do I want to think about this? Is this really true? Is this helpful? How does it make me feel—and do I want to feel that way? The Bible tells us to “take every thought captive and make it obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 GNT). All your feelings are caused by thoughts. If you don’t like the way you feel, then you need to change the way you think. Simply take the thought causing bad feelings and replace it with a different thought. The Bible says, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts” (Proverbs 4:23 GNT). Instead of playing old tapes over and over again in your mind, confront those thoughts. What you think about is your choice, and you don’t have to believe every thought you have. When you confront a thought that you know isn’t true, you can choose to change what you’re thinking! You can replace it with God’s truth. The only way to know truth is to get in God’s Word. The more time you choose to spend in God’s Word, the more his truth will help you change your thoughts. Start changing your thinking today. It will give you a fresh start, and eventually it will change your life! “You have everything when you have Christ, and you are filled with God through your union with Christ. He is the highest Ruler, with authority over every other power.”
Colossians 2:10 (TLB) If you’re ready to make a fresh start, you need to take a personal inventory. That means you take stock of and evaluate what you’ve got to work with. When you do a personal inventory, ask yourself these three questions: What are your assets? Look at your physical assets, your educational assets, and your financial assets. And remember your spiritual assets as a child of God. Colossians 2:10 says, “You have everything when you have Christ, and you are filled with God through your union with Christ. He is the highest Ruler, with authority over every other power” (TLB). What have you learned? Take time to write down lessons you’ve learned about life, yourself, family, God—whatever you can think of. Galatians 3:4 says, “Did all your experience mean nothing at all?” (GNT) You won’t waste your experiences if you learn from them. Especially pay attention to your painful experiences—because God never wastes a hurt. Instead of having a pity party, learn from your pain. Write down the lessons. Stop regretting and rehearsing your mistakes and start learning from them. Why? Because innovation is always built on failure. It’s how you recognize what doesn’t work. You can also review what Bible teaching has taught you. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:14, “You must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you” (NLT). Who can help you in your fresh start? Proverbs 15:22 says, “Get all the advice you can, and you will succeed; without it you will fail” (GNT). Pride often keeps people from reaching their dreams and goals. Instead of asking for advice, people insist on figuring things out themselves. The Bible says pride leads to destruction. It also says that God gives grace to the humble. Why? Because the humble are teachable. You’re never going to have a fresh start if you act like you’ve already arrived. You need other people to speak truth, point out your blind spots, encourage you, and help you remember God’s promises. When you take a thorough, honest inventory of your life, you’ll see how God has prepared you to make a fresh start. “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:19 (NIV) Have you noticed that fear makes you miserable? Looking at your life and the future with eyes of fear will never produce joy. After the spies gave their reports of the Promised Land to Moses—most of them negative—here’s how the Israelites responded: “Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. ‘If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!’ they complained” (Numbers 14:1-2 NLT). Now, that’s what you call a full-blown pity party. The Israelites were so afraid of what was going to happen, that they just wanted to die in the desert rather than trust whatever God had in store for them. These verses from Numbers 14 include four warning signs. When these warnings show up in your life, you will know that you’re looking at the future with eyes of fear. Your sadness increases. Depression can be caused by a lot of things, and it robs you of joy. If you feel sadness pushing out your joy, consider whether you’re allowing fear to skew your perspective. Your complaining increases. When you’re afraid, you want others to share in your misery. If you don’t think you’ve been complaining more lately, check with your spouse or your friends. Sometimes they can see how your fear is manifesting itself better than you can. You start second-guessing. The Israelites all complained about the very people who had led them out of slavery. Fear always sows seeds of doubt. You want to go backwards. Because their perspective was so skewed by fear, the Israelites thought it would be better to die in slavery in Egypt. Of course, they didn’t really want that. But when you’re living with a vision of fear instead of faith, you can’t look at the future with hope. You don’t want to be someone who complains and is always looking back. That’s why God wants you to see the future through eyes of faith, not fear. Start growing your faith today by reserving intentional time with God and in his Word, which says, “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19 NIV). The more you get to know God and his promises, the more purposefully and joyfully you will move toward your future. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) Why does the Bible say vision is so important in your life? Because “where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18 KJV). Here are three reasons it’s essential to have a clear vision of God’s purpose for your life. Without God’s vision, there’s indecision. James 1:8 says, “A person who has doubts is thinking about two different things at the same time and can’t make up his mind about anything” (GW). Without God’s vision for your future, you drift and wander through life. You don’t have goals, purpose, or meaning. When you just let life happen to you, you’re not really living! With no vision, you waste time and you miss opportunities. You don’t make the most of what you’ve been given, and that makes you a poor steward of your life. You end up just coasting. And when you’re coasting, you’re always heading downhill. Without God’s vision, there’s division. If you don’t understand God’s vision for your life, how can you expect others to support you in your purpose? In fact, the lack of vision makes you vulnerable to others steering you toward what they think or assume your purpose is. Only God can tell you your purpose because he created you specifically and uniquely to live it out. And only following his vision will allow you to live the abundant life God intends for you. If you aren’t sure where you’re headed, then don’t expect anybody else to go with you. Proverbs 28:2 says, “When the country is in chaos, everybody has a plan to fix it—But it takes a leader of real understanding to straighten things out” (The Message). Vision is the antidote to division. Without God’s vision, there’s collision. For many people, life is just a series of relational confrontations, financial crashes, and personal crises. It’s like a bumper car ride, where you just keep getting hit from all sides. Without God’s clear direction for your life, you will inevitably hit a dead end. The Bible warns of the consequences of not following God’s vision for your life: “Some have refused to let their faith guide their conscience and their faith has been destroyed like a wrecked ship” (1 Timothy 1:19 GW). Getting God’s vision for your life requires prayer, careful thought, and a continual effort to hear God’s voice. It’s the result of seeing things clearly, with eyes of faith rather than eyes of fear. When your faith guides your conscience, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of how to move forward with purpose. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
All
Archives
July 2024
|