“Praise him, you highest heaven and the water above the sky. Let them praise the name of the LORD because they were created by his command. He set them in their places forever and ever. He made it a law that no one can break.”
Psalm 148:4-6 (GW) Someone may have told you that the Bible isn’t scientifically accurate. That person is wrong. They have either never studied the Bible or never studied science. God set up the laws of science, and he made sure that his Word doesn’t contradict those laws. Johannes Kepler, the famous mathematician and astronomer, once said, “Science is simply thinking God’s thoughts after him.” In other words, God established the laws of physics, and then we discover them. The Bible wasn’t meant to be a scientific textbook. You don’t study the Bible to build a rocket. And the Bible doesn’t use scientific language. But the Bible never gives bad science! In fact, it’s always ahead of science. For example:
The Bible says, “Praise him, you highest heaven and the water above the sky. Let them praise the name of the LORD because they were created by his command. He set them in their places forever and ever. He made it a law that no one can break” (Psalm 148:4-6 GW). The laws of science don’t work one day and then stop working the next. Each and every one of them always works—because they are true and made by God. And truth doesn’t change.
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“Whoever looks intently into the perfect law . . . and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”
James 1:25 (NIV) If you’re serious about being spiritually strong and mature, the greatest habit you can develop is memorizing Scripture. In fact, the Bible says in James 1:25 that it’s one of four habits that lead to a blessed life: “Whoever looks intently into the perfect law . . . and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do” (NIV). Here are the four habits you find in that verse:
Even if you’re not used to memorizing, it’s a skill you can learn; it’s a muscle you can strengthen. In fact, memorizing Scripture will cause your brain to have a stronger memory in other areas—I guarantee it. Study after study has shown this. Why is it important to memorize Scripture? You’ll always have God’s Word with you. When you’re tempted, you usually don’t have a Bible open or by your side. When you’re witnessing to someone who doesn’t know Jesus, is under stress, needs comfort, or is in a crisis, there’s usually not a Bible around. You need God’s Word in your mind so you can remember it and review it right when you need it. You can meditate on Scripture wherever you go. If you’ve memorized Scripture, you can think about it when you get into bed at night or as you drive to an appointment. When you think about a portion of Scripture that you’ve memorized, you’re meditating on it. And the only promise of prosperity and success that God gives us in the Bible says that meditating on his Word is the key: “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8 NIV). Start memorizing Scripture today. Pick a verse a week. In a year, you’ll have memorized 52 verses. In two years, you’ll have memorized more than 100 verses. As you hide God’s Word in your heart, you’ll find yourself growing more and more into the person God wants you to be. “You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment.”
1 Peter 2:2 (NLT) Are you hungry for God? It’s possible to maintain a spiritual hunger for God for the rest of your life. Here are five ways to sustain a spiritual appetite. 1. Remind yourself how much God loves you. The more you understand how much God loves you, the more you’re going to love him. The Bible says in Ephesians 3:18-19, “May you have the power to understand . . . how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” (NLT). 2. Stop filling up on junk food. You are a spiritual being with a God-shaped hole in your heart that only God can fill. When you try to fill it with salary, status, success, passion, possessions, power, prestige, or anything other than God, it’s not going to be fulfilling. Proverbs 15:14 says, “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash” (NLT). 3. Make knowing God your number one goal. Happiness is a byproduct of knowing God. Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well” (NCV). 4. Get into God’s Word every day. The Bible is food for your soul. Eating just one meal a week won’t keep your body healthy. In the same way, you need to feed on God’s Word every day. “You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment” (1 Peter 2:2 NLT). 5. Surround yourself with other believers. If you hang out with people who only care about politics, you’ll care about politics. If you hang out with people who only care about sports, you’ll care about sports. If you hang out with people whose focus is knowing God, that will become your focus too. That’s why you need to join a small group of Christians for support—because whatever you talk about when you’re with others is what you’re going to be hungry for. Proverbs 2:20 says, “Follow the steps of the good, and stay on the paths of the righteous” (NLT). “Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children.”
Hebrews 12:7 (TLB) Do you know the difference between correction and punishment? Punishment is a penalty for the past, and correction is training for the future. Correction is discipline, not punishment. When something bad happens, we often think God is punishing us when God is actually just correcting us. How can we know this? Because God doesn’t punish his children. Jesus has already taken all of the punishment for every sin on the cross. Every sin you have ever committed and will ever commit has already been paid for. So God doesn’t punish you for your sins—but he does correct you. His correction is the evidence of his love, because he doesn’t want you to keep going the wrong direction. One way God corrects us is through pain. Hebrews 12:8-10 says, “If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness” (NLT). God doesn’t correct those who aren’t his children. As a father, we don't correct other people’s kids, but we certainly correct ours. We do it for their good because we want them to know the joy of following God and doing things his way. God wants the same for you if you have chosen to follow him and are his child. Following Jesus means cooperating when God brings any kind of correction into your life—not because he wants to punish you but because he loves you. When God corrects you, he isn’t mad at you. He’s mad about you! The Bible says, “Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children” (Hebrews 12:7 TLB). God’s correction is for your good, even when it comes with pain. “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life.”
Psalm 23:6 (NLT) Even in the middle of your hurts, habits, and hang-ups, God is watching over you. King David says to God in Psalm 23:6, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life” (NLT). When David says, “Surely your goodness will pursue me,” he’s not saying, “Surely only good things are going to happen to me.” David knew as well as anyone that bad things happen to good people. He had been abused and treated unfairly and was still a man who followed God’s heart. But he had also sinned terribly against people who had done no wrong to him. David’s point is that, no matter how bad, evil, or difficult something seems—and no matter how much we mess things up—God will work it out for good. His goodness is pursuing us, no matter which way we turn. It’s one of God’s great promises that he’s given to believers: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28 NIV). In everything that happens to us, God is working for our good—if we love God and are following his plans. This verse does not say that all things are good. But if you’re a believer, all things are working together for God’s plan and purposes, which are always good. That means there is no difficulty, dilemma, defeat, or disaster in the life of a believer that God can’t ultimately turn toward his purpose. When you believe that, it changes how you view everything in your life—your relationships with God and other people, your past, your future, and whatever you are facing today. As you trust in God’s good work in your life, you will be able to face even your toughest challenges with confidence. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5 (NIV) The moment you start doubting the goodness of God and deciding for yourself what will make you happy, all kinds of problems begin in your life. You wind up overworked, overanxious, and overloaded—and just generally overwhelmed! But God promises you an overflowing life, not an overwhelmed life. Jesus said, “I have come in order that you might have life—life in all its fullness” (John 10:10 GNT). How do you experience an abundant, overflowing life? There is one habit that, if you do it every day, will fill you with an endless supply of God’s goodness: Stay connected to Jesus. In John 15:5, Jesus compared staying connected to him with a grapevine: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 NIV). What happens when a cluster of grapes is cut off from the vine? It dies. The same is true with you. God is your true source of energy and power. If you try to go through life on your own power, you’re going to be overwhelmed. But if you’re connected to him, you’ll have all the power you need. Or, as the Bible says, “Your joy will overflow!” (John 15:11 NLT) One way to stay connected to Jesus is through a daily quiet time. In a quiet time, you set aside time to be alone with God and get to know him through reading his Word and talking to him in prayer. Mark 1:35 says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (NIV). Even Jesus knew his personal need for connection with God—and he was the Son of God! How much more do you need the strength that comes from daily time with the Lord? Some days you may not feel like having a quiet time—but do it anyway. If you wait to have a quiet time until you feel like it, Satan will make sure you never feel like it. Do you find yourself needing more time, energy, knowledge, or opportunity? I want to challenge you to develop the habit of spending daily time with Jesus. When you stay connected to him, you’ll find your life overflowing with God’s goodness and power—and you’ll realize that’s all you really need. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never die, and no one can steal them out of my hand.”
John 10:27-28 (NCV) You can’t save yourself—but you don’t have to! All you need to do is put your hand in God’s hand and say, “God, I surrender it all to you—all the good and bad parts of my life. I’m not perfect, but you are, and so I’m accepting your gift of salvation.” When you do that, you can relax in your salvation. But some days, you’ll want to let go of God’s hand. You’ll want to pull back and say, “I don’t even know what I believe.” But God is never going to let go of your hand, because he loves you too much. Jesus says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never die, and no one can steal them out of my hand. My Father gave my sheep to me. He is greater than all, and no person can steal my sheep out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:27-29 NCV). The “eternal life” God gives you begins the moment you put your hand in his, and you can’t lose it once you’ve got it. Why? Because your salvation is not based on having more good works to outweigh your bad works. It’s based on the merits of Jesus Christ. If you could get to heaven simply by being a nice person, then Jesus dying on the cross was a total waste of suffering, sorrow, sadness, and pain. If there was any other way for you to get into heaven except by Jesus Christ, God would have chosen it. But there was no other way. Jesus “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 NIV), which means the world is lost. Everyone is not going to heaven. If everyone was automatically going to heaven, Jesus did not need to come to Earth, live a perfect life, and then carry “our sins in his body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24 GNT). When you put your life in God’s hand, he promises he will hold on to you forever. This is why you can relax in your salvation. If you truly trust in Christ and know that you’re not getting to heaven on your own efforts, then nothing can steal your salvation from you—not Satan, sorrow, sickness, or society. You’re in the hand of the Good Shepherd. “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
John 10:10-11 (TLB) Sheep are essentially defenseless animals, so a shepherd carries a few tools to care for and protect his sheep. He has a rod for guarding and protecting, and he uses a staff with a little crook in it to rescue the sheep. We are like lost sheep in need of protection and direction—so Jesus came to Earth to be our Good Shepherd. He said, “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:10-11 TLB). Just as a shepherd uses the physical tools of the rod and the staff for direction and protection, God wants to direct and protect you. Here are two ways he does that: If you follow him, Jesus leads you in the right direction. If you visit a major city like Paris without a guide, you’ll miss all kinds of important things, because you won’t know what to look for. The same is true with your life. You need a guide—a shepherd—to go before you. You need Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who leads from the front and calls you forward. This is different from being a cowboy, who drives cattle from the back. Jesus is not going to push you through life. He gets in front of you and essentially says, “Watch how I do it. Look where I go.” John 10:4 says, “When he has led out all of his sheep, he walks in front of them, and they follow, because they know his voice” (CEV). If you bring your hurts to him, Jesus is compassionate. Jesus has compassion on us, because he knows that we are helpless without him. Matthew 9:36 says, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (NIV). The sense in the original Greek text is that Jesus hurt deeply for the people in the crowd and wanted to help them. In the same way, when you bring your pain to Jesus, he doesn’t put you down; he lifts you up. He doesn’t hassle you; he heals you. Because of God’s goodness, Jesus directs and protects you. Jesus is our Good Shepherd, who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28 ESV). “And Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.’"
Luke 1:46-47 (NIV) When it comes to planning, many Christians act like atheists. They realize Jesus saved them, but they don’t really trust him. They think they can plan their life any way they want to. But the reality is God created everyone, and he made each person for a unique purpose. He has a specific destiny for each individual. About two thousand years ago, God had a plan for a young woman named Mary. He had created her and chosen her to become the mother of the Son of God. What was Mary’s response when an angel told her about God’s plan? She didn’t say, “I’ve got my own plans for my life. I’m too busy. I have to do what’s best for me.” No, she realized God had a purpose for her life, and she was willing to do whatever he wanted. Her response was a song of praise: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47 NIV). Mary recognized that God was her Lord and Savior, and she was eager to do his will. She trusted him with her life, even though she knew no one would believe her when she told them what the angel said. Do you trust that God has made you for a specific destiny? The Bible says, “Know that the Lord is God. He made us, and we belong to him; we are his people, the sheep he tends” (Psalm 100:3 NCV). Many people will miss God’s plan for their lives by about 18 inches—the distance between their head and their heart. They intellectually believe the Gospel, but they don’t let it change their hearts. The truth is that you were not made for your own sake. You were made by God, and you were made for God. You might know quantum physics. You might understand chaos theory. You may even know how to build a rocket ship. But if you don’t know God, you’ve missed the purpose of life. At the end of your life, God won’t care how well you did in your career or ask to see your bank account balance. Instead, he’ll ask you this: “Did you get to know me? Did you build a relationship with my Son, whom I sent to Earth to die on the cross for you?” The most important thing in life is to know God—not to know about him, but to know him personally. “Without delay I hurry to obey your commands.”
Psalm 119:60 (GNT) Sometimes God’s Spirit tells you to move slowly. Other times you should move quickly. Today we’re going to talk about two times when you should move quickly. First, you should move quickly when God tells you to do something. The Bible is filled with instructions for life. The Bible calls them commands, and God wants you to obey them. Parents often give their children instructions. If the child replies, “I’ll think about it,” then the child is disobeying. The same is true for God and you. When God tells you to do something, he expects you to obey quickly. In Mark 1:17, Jesus says to two fishermen, “Come, follow me” (NIV). He was asking them to walk away from their careers. It was a big deal. Their response? “At once they left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:18 NIV). When God asks you to do something, he wants you to do it immediately. Psalm 119:60 says, “Without delay I hurry to obey your commands” (GNT). When it comes to obedience, hurry is a good thing. Second, move quickly when God’s Spirit reminds you that you need to ask for or offer forgiveness. Holding on to guilt or resentment is like drinking poison. It can eat you alive. Jesus says it like this in Matthew 5:23-24: “If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God” (The Message). Not even your worship of God is reason enough to delay forgiving or asking for forgiveness. If something isn’t right between you and another person, the time to make it right is now. When God tells you to do something or when you need to be reconciled with someone, don’t delay—it’s the time to move quickly. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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