“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”
1 John 4:18 (NIV) God is a God of radical freedom. In fact, the Bible says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1 NIV). What does God’s freedom give you? Over the last few days, we’ve learned that it gives you a clear conscience, direct access to God, and the power to do what’s right. It also gives you freedom from the fear of death. Death is a universal fear, yet it’s a fear that few people want to face. It may be tempting to go through life pretending you’re not going to die. But only a fool would go through life unprepared for what they know is inevitable. Here’s the good news: Jesus came to set you free from the fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-16 says, “For only as a human being could he die and in dying break the power of the devil who had the power of death. Only in that way could he deliver those who through fear of death have been living all their lives as slaves to constant dread” (TLB). The only people who are afraid of God are people who don’t know him. The better you get to know him, the less you’re afraid of him, because God is love. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18 NIV). How could you fear someone who loves you unconditionally? How could you fear someone who thinks about you more than you do? God knows every detail of your life. He even knows how many hairs you have on your head! So why would you be afraid to go be with him forever? If you know the Lord when you die, you’re not leaving home—you’re going home! You’re going where you were meant to be for all eternity, to “the kingdom [God] prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matthew 25:34 NIV). Praise God, you can live free! You can live without guilt, able to talk to God anytime and anywhere, free to do what is right, and confident there’s no need to fear death—all because you belong to Jesus.
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“If you are really eager to give, then it isn’t important how much you have to give. God wants you to give what you have, not what you haven’t.”
2 Corinthians 8:12 (TLB) Generosity is about far more than giving money. It’s about living generously in every area of your life. The Bible says this about generosity: “You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion” (2 Corinthians 9:11 NIV). What does it look like to “be generous on every occasion”? It means being generous with your time, praise, sympathy, forgiveness, love, compliments, and kindness. It means being generous with your listening so that you can seek to understand others. And it means being generous with your attention so that you can be aware of the needs of people. But God isn’t interested in how much you give in life. He cares about why you give and how you give. He cares about your motivation—your heart. That’s the difference between normal generosity and radical generosity. Radical generosity is an attitude, not an amount. The Bible says it this way: “If you are really eager to give, then it isn’t important how much you have to give. God wants you to give what you have, not what you haven’t” (2 Corinthians 8:12 TLB). God doesn’t need your money, talent, or time. In truth, he really doesn’t need anything from you. But what he wants from you is your heart. What he wants is your love. The Bible says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21 NIV). When you give your life to Christ, your heart will be with him. No matter what you do or what you give, it’s important to check your motivation. Why? Because God wants you to “do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17 NIV). He wants you to be radically generous. “So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”
1 Peter 1:6-7 (NLT) You need more than positive thinking to survive in this world. You need hope. In 1 Peter 1, the Bible offers five reasons you can have hope through Jesus Christ. Here are the first four:
Finally, you can have hope because God is preparing you for eternity. God is using everything in your life—the good, the bad, and the ugly—to do so. Once you understand this, life begins to make sense. You stop saying, “Lord, why is this happening?” because you know why: He’s preparing you for eternity. The Bible says, “So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world” (1 Peter 1:6-7 NLT). Those verses describe six truths about problems: Problems are temporary. They won’t last forever. Problems are necessary. They are an indispensable part of preparing you for heaven. Problems are varied. You’ll experience trials of all different shapes, sizes, and levels of intensity. Problems test your faith. You build muscles by testing them. In the same way, when your faith is tested, your faith grows stronger. Problems purify your motives. God is much more interested in your character than in your comfort. He’ll use trials to refine your character. Problems prepare you for your rewards. The trials you’re going through now don’t compare to the rewards of heaven. The troubles you’re experiencing now aren’t fun. They may even be painful. But the Bible makes it clear that they’ll make your faith stronger. Then, your faith will produce perseverance. That’s why you can have hope, no matter what’s going on in your life right now. “You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by his Spirit.”
1 Peter 1:2 (GNT) Many people in our broken world ask why things don’t seem to go right so much of the time. They want to know, “Is there hope?” Hope is essential. You and I need genuine hope—not just optimism. Optimism is psychological; it’s based on the way you think. Hope is theological; it’s based on who God is and his relationship with you. Optimism is positive thinking. Hope is passionate trusting. The book of 1 Peter is a letter of hope. Peter wrote it to Christians who were suffering persecution in the Roman Empire. In the first seven verses of 1 Peter, God gives five roots of radical hope. The first root of radical hope is this: God chose you before you chose him. The Bible says, “You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by his Spirit” (1 Peter 1:2 GNT). Your salvation is no accident. Long before you chose God, he chose you. You were his idea. Before God even created the universe, he decided he wanted to create you. Look again at 1 Peter 1:2. It says, “You were chosen according to the purpose of God.” That means God has a purpose for your life. What is that purpose? He wants to make you holy for heaven. In other words, God has chosen you to spend eternity with him. That’s a big deal! In fact, it’s the highest honor you could ever receive. And it’s the first reason you can have hope, no matter what’s going on in your life. Let this root of radical hope grow down deep in your life: Before you chose him, God chose you to spend eternity with him. “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.”
Romans 8:38-39 (TLB) No matter how bad life gets, you can rest in one important truth: God won’t stop loving you. You’ll have things go right. You’ll have things go wrong. But God’s love will never end. You can count on that. In fact, that truth should be one of the most important sources of joy in your life! The Bible says it like this in Romans 8:38-39: “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are — high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean — nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us” (TLB). That’s good news. When you put your hand in God’s hand, he grabs it and won’t let go. God holds on to you with all he has. You’ll have times in your life when you’ll want to let go of God’s hand. You’ll want to give up your commitment to Christ when times get tough. But God won’t let go of you—ever. Once you put your hand in his, it’s there to stay. If you could earn your salvation, you could lose it the moment you stopped working for it. But you didn’t earn your relationship with God. It was a free gift. Once it has been given, it can’t be taken back. That’s an unimaginable source of joy for any believer. “What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?”
Romans 8:31 (NLT) Psychologists have identified hundreds of fears that people can have. Fear is a universal problem—and it takes away your joy. But here’s the good news: You don’t have to be afraid. You have God on your side! The Bible reminds you, “What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” (Romans 8:31 NLT) With God on your side, you don’t need anything else. God plus one equals a majority. What’s your greatest fear? Is it embarrassment? Failure? Rejection? Disappointing others? Not fitting in? Satan uses all of these fears to rob you of joy. He knows what will make you joyful, so he creates fears to oppose those things. For example, Satan knows that obeying God will always bring you joy. So, he makes you afraid of what other people will think if you do the right thing. He makes you worry more about your popularity than pleasing God. Satan also knows that one of the greatest sources of joy in life is when you share the love of Christ with an unbeliever. So, he makes you afraid to tell people about Jesus. The truth is, to find joy, you need only one thing. You need to live for an audience of one: God. That’s Jesus’ path to complete and total joy. He said, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11 NIV). You can have joy in life, knowing that God is for you. Fear not! “It was by faith that Moses left Egypt and was not afraid of the king’s anger. Moses continued strong as if he could see the God that no one can see.”
Hebrews 11:27 (NCV) There is a strong belief in our culture that if it feels good, do it. That influences every one of us, whether we want it to or not. But when you allow yourself to be manipulated by your moods, you are living your life according to your feelings. But God wants you to live a different kind of life—a life of faith, not just a life of feeling. The truth is, we don’t always feel like doing the right thing. But God can give you the kind of faith that persists above feelings. If you look around, you’ll see that successful people do things they don’t feel like doing. They get tired of going through the motions and want to do things differently. They do the things that other people aren’t willing to do. You can’t be an Olympic athlete unless you spend the extra hours training. You can’t be a master musician unless you spend many hours practicing. The same principle is true for being a mature, godly Christian. If you want to deepen your relationship with God, you have to spend time with him, even when you don’t feel like it. Do you know people who really enjoy their time with God? That’s because they persisted in spending time with God, even when they didn’t feel like it. Faith and persistence go hand in hand. Faith means you don’t give up even when you’re tired. Faith means you just won’t quit. When you’re living in faith, you’re persisting. Moses was a great example of a life lived in faithful persistence. Hebrews 11:27 says, “It was by faith that Moses left Egypt and was not afraid of the king’s anger. Moses continued strong as if he could see the God that no one can see” (NCV). Moses realized this important truth: You can only accomplish the impossible when you see the invisible. God will give you strength to persevere. He’ll give you the power to keep working on the marriage that seems hopeless. He will give you the power to pick yourself up when you’ve fallen. He can give you the power to keep going when you’re on the edge of bankruptcy. He’ll give you the power to keep your convictions when all the pressure around you says to give in. The key to faith is to be persistent. Keep your eyes on God, not on your problem. God’s power to keep going is always there for you. You just need to ask him for it. “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!”
Philippians 4:4 (NLT) The Apostle Paul says, “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4 NLT) He doesn’t say you should be joyful only in good times. He says you should be full of joy always. But how can you do that? The Bible teaches that—even when times are tough—you can be joyful if you follow these four simple strategies: Thank God in all things. When you pray, do it with thanksgiving. The healthiest human emotion is gratitude. It actually increases your immunities. It makes you more resistant to stress and less susceptible to illness. People who are grateful are happy. But people who are ungrateful are miserable because nothing makes them happy. They’re never satisfied. It’s never good enough. But if you cultivate an attitude of gratitude—of being thankful in every circumstance—your stress will lessen. Don’t worry about anything. Worrying doesn’t change anything. It’s stewing without doing. No one is born a worrier. Worry is a learned response. You learned it from your parents. You learned it from your peers. You learned it from experience. That’s good news. The fact that worry is learned means it can also be unlearned. How do you unlearn it? Jesus says in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (NIV). In our culture, we might say it like this: Don’t open your umbrella until it starts raining. Or, in other words, live one day at a time. Pray about everything. Instead of worrying, use your time to pray. If you prayed as much as you worried, you’d have a lot less to worry about. Is God interested in your car payments? Yes, he’s interested in every detail of your life. And because of that, you can take any problem to God that you face. Think about the right things. If you want to reduce the level of stress in your life, you must change the way you think, because the way you think determines how you feel. And the way you feel determines how you act. The Bible teaches that, if you want to change your life, you need to change what you’re thinking about. This involves a deliberate, conscious choice to think about the right things. You need to choose to think about positive things and focus on God’s Word. What is the result of not worrying, praying about everything, giving thanks, and focusing on the right things? Paul says, “You will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7 NLT). “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
Ephesians 4:29 (NIV) Radical gratitude means you’re going to walk through life being grateful in every situation, no matter what—in times of plenty, when times are tight, when times are good, bad, right, wrong, whatever. You can develop an attitude of gratitude by choosing to be grateful in every situation. The attitude of radical gratitude actually serves others; it becomes a ministry. Have you realized that every believer is a minister? You are a minister! Because every Christian is a minister, that means you should be serving other people. In fact, you’re saved to serve. And one ministry you can develop is the ministry of appreciation. Do you know what the word “appreciation” means? If you’ve ever bought a car, you know the meaning of depreciation. The moment you drive it off the lot, it’s worth less than you paid for it, even if it’s a brand-new vehicle. Depreciation means “to decrease in value.” Appreciation is the opposite. It means “to increase in value.” When you appreciate your husband, you raise his value. When you appreciate your wife, you raise her value. When you appreciate your kids, you raise their value. When you appreciate your co-workers, you raise their value to you and to the company. When you appreciate your boss, you raise his or her value. The ministry of appreciation raises the value of people. As you develop radical gratitude, you can make a ministry out of raising the value of people simply by appreciating them. The Bible says it like this: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29 (NIV) You may have discovered that everyone needs massive doses of encouragement. Have you ever met anybody who’s said, “Oh no! I don’t need a compliment! I have too many. Please, stop! I’m too affirmed. Don’t give me anymore.” You have an unqualified need to be affirmed, to be loved, to be appreciated—and so does everybody else. If you want to be used by God, here’s one way: Affirm everyone. Appreciate everyone. Show gratitude to everyone. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV) The more deeply you understand God’s love, the more grateful you will become. In fact, the Bible says that gratitude should saturate your life: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV). Notice that the Bible says to give thanks in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. There is a big difference! You don’t have to be thankful for the bad things that happen in your life. Not everything that happens in the world is God’s will. In fact, most of the time, God’s will is not done here on Earth; instead, people’s will is done. There’s a lot of evil in the world, and you don’t need to thank God for that. But you can thank God in the midst of it. We can thank God in every circumstance. Here are some reasons why:
The truth is that we could think of a hundred reasons to be thankful in any circumstance, even circumstances that seem horrible. Look again at 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV). It says you should give thanks to God “in all circumstances.” The Greek word used is the word pos, which means any, all, everything, anyone, all the time, anywhere, everywhere, the whole thing. It means no exception, no excuses, no exemptions. That seems pretty radical, doesn’t it? That’s why it’s radical gratitude. It doesn’t take any effort to be grateful for the nice present someone just gave you. Anyone can do that. But being grateful in all circumstances takes radical gratitude. People say they want to know God’s will. They want to know what God wants them to do with their lives. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, God makes that very clear: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (NIV). Giving thanks in all situations is God’s will for you. And the more thankful you are, the closer you’ll get to God! |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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