Tag: trust

Categories
Christian Living

Waiting on the Lord can be Scary. You need the Faith of Moses.

Yes, waiting on the Lord to come through can be a time of anxiety and fear. But do not worry – He always answers. (Though His answer and timing will not always be just what we were expecting.)a photo of an old clock reminding us of waiting

In Exodus, we find that Moses led the people out of Egypt. But Pharaoh determined that He would not allow his slave labor to slip out of his hands so easily. So he gathered up his army and pursued the people.

It is not clear whether God had shared with Moses how He would rescue the people, but even before it occurred, Moses trusted that God would keep His word.

Here is part of the story from Exodus 14:

The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his horsemen, and his army—chased after them and caught up with them as they camped by the sea.

The Israelites were terrified and cried out to the Lord for help. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Isn’t this what we told you in Egypt: Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

Even though the people had recently seen ten amazing miracles of God’s remarkable power, they are now unwilling to trust that God could keep His promise of rescue. They had hoped that God would come through, but they are now doubting that He will.photo of lifesaving float that is used for rescuing those in trouble

Moses spoke up showing his faith, “Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation that he will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you….”

And in the next moments, God parts the Red Sea, lets the Israelites escape, and destroys Pharaoh and his army.

But that’s how God took care of the Israelites more than 3000 years ago. What about my waiting on God today? Can I trust Him to come through for me with my problems and worries?

God has promised that He is with me. And therefore He tells me that I do not have to fear. So why is it that I still doubt? Why am I so similar to the fearful Israelites, when God has been faithful to take care of me through so many difficult situations in the past?

A Prayer for us today: “God, forgive me when I worry. Give me the faith of Moses, so that even before You show Your might and power, that I trust in You and in Your amazing ability to take care of my every need. Help me to be faithful, even while I am waiting on Your answer. Amen.”

What has helped you maintain faith (and eliminate worry) while you were waiting on God’s answer to come?

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Categories
Prayer

Sharing Personal Prayer Needs with Others is Important

In my previous post, I shared the commitments of our FBC Newton Discipleship-Groups. Along with those commitments, what actually happens when the group meets? One important aspect is sharing personal prayer needs.

By Personal Prayer Needs, we mean prayer requests that you have for yourself or for your immediate family (as in the people who live in the house with you). Most of us are good at sharing the prayer needs of other people around us, but we are seldom transparent about what we need prayer for the most in our own lives. Being honest and transparent in this way takes trust. That trust is more easy to develop in a small D-group than in a Sunday School class of 12 people.

We believe that prayer is effective at changing lives, and so we ask for Personal Prayer Needs and then we take the time to pray together for one another.

Are you sharing personal prayer needs with anyone in your life? Or do you keep all of those to yourself?

praying hands symbolizing the need for prayer, but also encouraging personal prayer needs being shared with others
Who Can You Get To Join You In Praying For Your Personal Prayer Needs?

In conjunction with these prayer needs, we then ask for each person to share what God has been teaching them through their Bible reading. This is where we share what we have written down that God has been teaching us. This could be something challenging, helpful, interesting, or difficult from your Bible reading. Again, these are also often a form of prayer needs, as someone might say, “As I was reading this passage about controlling the tongue, God pointed out to me to watch how I talk to my wife. I have been pretty harsh lately.” This becomes an additional transparent prayer need that we can pray for as a group.

As we read God’s Word, we ask each person to ask: “What applications can I find in the passage to help me live for Christ more consistently?”

One way you can do this is to use C.A.S.E. to find application points. As you read the Bible, look for:

    C – Commands to obey
    A – Attitudes to change
    S – Sins to avoid or confess
    E – Examples to follow

Then we pray to end our meeting, asking God to help us apply something specific that we have discussed/discovered in our meeting.

As I wrote previously, I will say again: You need this in your life!
You need to be discipled by others and you need to be discipling others.
That is the calling on your life to “Go and make disciples” that Jesus commanded of you.

Are you reading your Bible with a view toward how to apply it to your life? The Bible gives us clear application of how to live in a way to bring glory to our great God.

Who do you have in your life that you are able to share personal prayer needs with? Who do you know is truly committed to praying for you? Who can you ask to pray for you regarding the applications you are gaining from your Bible reading? There are people out there who are willing to be in a group with you to do this. If you aren’t sure who they are, begin praying now that God will point them out to you, and then invite those two or three people to start a group with you.

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Categories
Christian Living

You Were Placed Where You Are For A Specific Purpose

Esther was the queen, but she had never let her nationality be known. Her cousin Mordecai was outside the palace and Esther felt he was making a scene by mourning in sackcloth and ashes. She sent a message to ask why. Here is basically what was said between the two of them:

Mordecai: “The reason that I am in sackcloth and ashes is that your husband (the king) has decreed that all of us who are of our nationality should be put to death in the near future.”

Esther: “That’s too bad. I am sorry to hear it. I didn’t know about it. But I can’t do anything about it because I have not been called into the king’s presence for a month, and the law says if I go without being summoned, I could die.”

Mordecai: “Do not imagine that just because you now live in the king’s palace that you will escape the death penalty that all of us are under. Realize that if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will still arise for the Jews from another place. And who knows? Maybe you have attained this position of royalty for such a time as this?”

Esther: “I understand what you are saying and I agree, so go and assemble all the Jews in the city, and fast for me for three days. I will do the same thing. And then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I die, I die.”

Mordecai tells Esther that if she kept silent and did nothing, it wouldn’t really matter, because deliverance would still come from another source. Mordecai realized that the hand of God is always moving and he places us in specific positions for specific purposes. He knows that Esther is on the throne for a purpose.

Esther did not accidentally win a beauty contest. She was not accidentally the one who became queen. She is there for a very definite purpose, and God has been arranging this all the time. He is prepared for this event. God knows what is coming. That is why we can trust Him.

Esther could have given in to her fears and said: “God, my desires are that I just keep living in the palace and what I want is for You to work without using me. I want You to bend your plans to my desires.”

But instead, once Esther saw the truth that Mordecai revealed to her, she basically said: “God, you have a desire for me to do something which I am scared about – I may even die because of attempting it. But so be it. You’ve placed me here for this exact moment. I will bend my desire to Your will.”

I love the opening words of the poem, God Knows

And I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

We can trust God. When we put our hand in His hand, He has the power to hold us up for His purposes.

And He has a purpose for you. God has placed you in this time in the history of this world for a specific purpose. He has placed you in your position in your family for a specific purpose. He has placed you in your business for a specific purpose. He has placed you in your community for a specific purpose. It is to lead the people in each of those areas into a deeper knowledge of who God is as they watch you boldly live for Him.

He has plans for you to impact your mission field – your family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors.

Will you meet the challenge that He has purposed for you, in spite of your fears?

Just like Esther, you were placed here FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS!

a graphic of a clock with the words "for such a time as this" reminding us of our specific purpose for life

Categories
Christian Living

I Am Following God, But Life Is Still Tough. What Gives?

a dark tunnel symbolizing the tough passages that God might lead us through
I wish there were simple answers to all of life’s tough questions, but we often find that many of our questions cannot be packaged into a box that is easily and neatly tied up. This is a question that is difficult. What we discover in our lives is that as we strive to follow God we have this sense that life should get easier, but our experience is that many times life gets even harder. This leads to us questioning if God is mad at us or if we have misunderstood God’s leading:

      Here is another cause of deep perplexity for Christian people…. They have set off along the road which God seemed to indicate. And now, as a direct result, they have run into a crop of new problems which otherwise would not have arisen—isolation, criticism, abandonment by their friends, practical frustrations of all sorts. At once they grow anxious. …Is their own present experience of the rough side of life (they ask themselves) a sign from God that they are themselves like Jonah, off track, following the path of self-will rather than the way of God?
      It may be so, and the wise person will take occasion from his new troubles to check his original guidance very carefully. Trouble should always be treated as a call to consider one’s ways. But trouble is not necessarily a sign of being off track at all…[as the Bible] teaches in particular that following God’s guidance regularly leads to upsets and distresses which one would otherwise have escaped. Examples abound.
God guided Israel by means of a fiery and cloudy pillar that went before them; yet the way by which he led them involved the nerve-shredding cliffhanger of the Red Sea crossing….
      Jesus’ disciples were twice caught by night in bad weather on the Sea of Galilee, and both times the reason why they were there was the command of Jesus himself.
      [Paul] told the Ephesian elders whom he met on his way, “I am going to Jerusalem, bound in the Spirit, not knowing what shall befall me there; except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.” So it proved to be: Paul found trouble on the grand scale through following divine guidance.
      …For a final example and proof of the truth that following God’s guidance brings trouble, look at the life of the Lord Jesus himself. No human life has ever been so completely guided by God, and no human being has ever qualified so comprehensively for the description “a man of sorrows.” Divine guidance set Jesus at a distance from his family and fellow townsmen, brought him into conflict with all the nation’s leaders, religious and civil, and led finally to betrayal, arrest and the cross.
      …By every human standard of reckoning, the cross was a waste—the waste of a young life, a prophet’s influence, a leader’s potential. We know the secret of its meaning and achievement only from God’s own statements. Similarly, the Christian’s guided life may appear as a waste—as with Paul, spending years in prison because he followed God’s guidance to Jerusalem, when he might otherwise have been evangelizing Europe the whole time. Nor does God always tell us the why and wherefore of the frustrations and losses which are part and parcel of the guided life.
      Sooner or later, God’s guidance, which brings us out of darkness into light, will also bring us out of light into darkness. It is part of the way of the cross.

But thankfully, what I have found in my own experience is that even though I might be taken to difficult places by the guiding hand of God, the great news is that He not only holds my hand taken me to there, but he also never lets go as He leads me through them.

And there is a purpose for me going through it, even if I don’t understand it right now. I just have to trust Him even when I can’t see the end result.

I also need to remember that the purpose may not be about me, but rather about building up His kingdom. Since I have pledged my life to be His servant and to build His kingdom, then even if my life is crushed in the process, I am to be willing to be crushed for His sake.

I agree with the words of a song: “I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus, than to walk in the light of my own. I’d rather go through the valley of the shadow with Him, than to dance on the mountains alone.” The Christian life is tough. It is not for the weak… it is for the courageous. It is for those with the courage to follow God even when the path isn’t clear and even when the road is rough.


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer, and from Wayne Watson’s song: Walk in the Dark)


Categories
Christian Living

Avoiding the Fear of Death

We all have fears…
            …heights, confined spaces, flying, spiders, alien abductions!

Or maybe one of your big fears is that ugly, old Grim Reaper.
Are you afraid of death?
photo of a scythe symbolizing fear of death
I have spent time with people who are extremely brave in the face of danger, yet who are afraid to die. I’ve been asked the question: “How do you get to a place where you have no fear of death?”

My belief is that our way out of every fear (even fear of death) is increased trust in God. He tells me that He has this thing called “my life” in His hands and under control. The question is whether I trust that to be true. Because the more I trust Him and believe His Word, the less fear I have – even of that moment when I’ll take my last breath.

In fact, Jesus calls us into a weird paradox – to embrace death when we choose life with Him – death to self. “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” He tells us: To live is Christ; & to die is gain. Simply meaning that for every Christian, when we leave this earth, we will get to be with Him – and that is going to be better than anything we’ve ever experienced on this life…
           …Better than the moment of saying “I do” and kissing your spouse on your wedding day; better than the moment of holding your tiny newborn baby in your arms for the first time. Death will still be better because the next moment after death I’ll be with Jesus. I think a lot of us still have doubts about the truth of this idea, but until we trust it to be true, we will be afraid of death.

“Fleeing from death is the shortest path to a wasted life.”

We are all called to die to self, such that even if our very lives are taken due to our belief in Christ, it does not matter to us. But we wonder, if I truly have to die for Christ, then how does that benefit anyone? How does that make God look great to others?

“If being a Christian costs you your life, how will that help you make much of Christ? Many have made God look great through their death. When the hour comes for everything to be taken from us but Christ, we magnify Him by saying: “In Him I have everything and more. To die is gain.” If we learn to die like that, we will be ready to live. And if we don’t learn this, we waste our lives.”

What are you afraid of?
And how have you gotten past the fear of death? (even if you are still afraid of snakes!)


— brian rushing
(quotes by Jon Piper in Don’t Waste Your Life)