Tag: truth

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Faith and Hope

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 NIV

During this time of year, we tend to become more invested in the magic or wonder of Christmas. We try to open our hearts a little more than before and make visiting with family we haven’t seen in a while more of a priority than it was before. Children get their hopes up that they will get what they want for Christmas.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year and in the secular world, it is filled with mystery and magic about how things happen. For Christians, Christmas isn’t about mystery or magic of a man in a red suit, it is about celebrating a King who freely gave up His throne in Heaven to become a fragile human baby. We celebrate because we believe that Jesus came down from Heaven and became that baby so He could grow up and save us.

Our belief in Jesus as a human baby and all that it entails, leads us to faith that there is also a Heavenly Father that we cannot see. We are not able to see Jesus, but the people in that time got to see Him. None of us have ever seen God the Father, but the life of Jesus takes our hope that He is there and builds it into an assurance and confidence that God the Father exists.

In this temporal world, our eyes provide the evidence that things exist, such as seeing a tree, a pet, or a loved one but they do not provide evidence for everything. Our eyes do not see things like gravity or air. We can see things drop to the ground and we feel that we can breath the air, so we know they exist even though we can’t see them. We have faith that they are present. The same is true for followers of Jesus, just because we can’t see God the Father doesn’t mean He isn’t real or doesn’t exist, we have faith that He is present.

So, during this season when the world is trying to be more believing of a man in a red suit, I encourage everyone to hope for, have assurance of, and build your faith in God the Father, who exists in Heaven.

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No distinction

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28 NIV

In this verse, Paul is telling the church in Galatia that they are all in this together. There were people with a lot of money, people with a little amount of money, families, people who had never been married, people who were married, widows and widowers, Jewish background and Gentile background now together in the church. These individuals would not normally have associated with each other outside of business according to their culture, so the idea of all of them now worshipping God together was a hurdle that they had to overcome. Paul wanted them to understand, that as far as God was concerned they were all one in Christ. There was no distinction among them to determine if one person was “more worthy” than another of being forgiven and a follower of Christ.

Unfortunately, the idea of some people being “more worthy” of God’s love and forgiveness is a false teaching that we still deal with today. There are individuals who believe that if you do not have the ‘correct’ clothing or drive the ‘right’ kind of car, that you should not be worshipping God in their building. It is sad to me that there are people who want to keep the amazing gift of God’s love from others based on how they look or what they possess.

God makes no distinction between people, He simply loves us ALL.

So my challenge to everyone today – If you have accepted God’s love and forgiveness, I encourage you to spread it like wild flowers, sharing the gift with everyone you know. If you have not accepted God’s love and forgiveness, I encourage you to reconsider. God wants all people to be with Him, not just the ones who look a certain way or have certain possessions.

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Reap what we sow

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” Galatians 6:7-8 NIV

Paul is talking to the Church at large in South Galatia in this letter and he was very familiar with them. He helped to form these churches and the members are not matured followers at this point. This letter has a stern tone to it because he is concerned that the members of the church are moving away from Jesus. In these verses, he tells them to not be deceived. False teachers were leading them to believe that they could deceive God and do what they wanted in their flesh and not have to deal with the consequences.

Paul makes it clear that just as a farmer who plants a seed of corn cannot expect wheat to grow, that what a man sows in his heart, he will reap. He also wanted them to understand, as they had before the false teachers were influencing them, that with sowing fleshly desires comes destruction. It is with sowing the desires of the Spirit that they reap eternal life.

As we go about our day, would you please look at what you what you end up reaping from what you are sowing in this life.

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Not because of us

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,” 2 Timothy 1:9 NIV

Paul is writing this letter to Timothy, his second letter to him, to encourage him. Timothy is a pastor who has worked alongside Paul for years. He is now in Ephesus ministering by himself and Paul is sending encouragement. Timothy is facing continuing the Church after Paul’s death, which Paul believes to be in the near future.

Timothy, as any pastor, has the responsibility of shepherding the new believers into a different way of living, a life of serving Jesus and at the same time, helping the Christians who have been walking in faith with Jesus, continue on the same path of following sound doctrine. This was all very challenging as the Church was not very old in it’s existence and the ‘mature’ Christians had not been walking in faith very long themselves.

Paul is reminding Timothy here in this verse that God Himself, had a plan for each and everyone of us long before we were born, long before He created time. That plan had nothing to do with how great we were or were going to be or what great deeds we were going to do, but everything to do with what God had in mind for humanity.

Clearly, God does not force us into following His plan, we have to choose to believe in Him and follow His plan. However, even if we don’t choose it, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there to begin with. Paul is encouraging Timothy to continue to follow the plan God has laid out for Timothy in ministering to God’s sheep.

Have you ever thought about what plan God has for you?

If you have, are you searching for what it is so you can follow it or are you already following it?

If you haven’t, please think about how much God loves you and wants what is best for you. Wanting what is best for us, would lead me to believe that the plan He has for our lives is going to be more than we could ever dream of.

The choice is yours.

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Grace upon grace

“Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:16-17 NIV

John is talking here about the new way of living that Jesus is introducing to everyone through His ministry, a way of peace, truth, love and grace. The law that was given to Moses was what was needed at that time but was very inflexible. If you broke one law, you broke them all.

Jesus came so that we could have life and life abundantly. Jesus replaced the Mosaic Law with the Law of the Messiah, it came through Jesus and His sacrifice. The law of Moses did not allow for any errors or room for growth through making mistakes. The way of life that Jesus offers is the opposite, it embraces that we are going to make mistakes. That is why there is grace.

Also, God’s supply of grace is endless, He doesn’t give each person only so much grace and once they use it they are out of grace. No, God’s grace is sufficient for all because it is meant for all and it is for all time.

Have you accepted God’s grace? If you haven’t, do you want to accept God’s grace? If so, pray to God and ask for direction, find a friend who is a Christian and talk about Who it is that they follow, find a Bible teaching church and speak with the pastor. Do any of these or all of these, but please do it, your eternal life, where you will spend eternity, depends on it.

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Sacrifice of praise

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.” Hebrews 13:15 NIV

When I studied this seemingly simple verse, I found that it is saying a lot. First there is the idea that the word ‘through’ is talking about how the only way to remove the wall that separates us from God is to acknowledge Jesus as the final and permanent sacrificial offering. Acknowledge that He is the One who came to save the world by removing that wall that separates us from God, giving us the ability to communicate with God.

The next part, “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise” is thought to be Paul talking about how, as Christians, we are sacrificing all that we are each and every day in order to follow God’s will for our lives. We know that God’s will is better than ours, but the idea of dying to self is hard at times as our desires are strongly rooted in us. However, the willful submission of them in order to follow God’s plan for our lives is our sacrifice of praise.

The last part, “the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” conveys that we should be willing to speak out to God. That we should not be only thinking thoughts of praise to God but we should be vocalizing them, in song, poems, reciting of scripture or our own created prayers of praise. We are to be voicing our connection to God and expressing out loud how much thankful we are, how much we love our Lord and how much we want to be like Jesus.

So, as I read this verse, at first glance I didn’t take in all that it has to say about how important our public profession of faith in God is. However, knowing that the Christian path begins with knowing that Jesus is the path by which we are able to communicate with the Father, and the sacrifices of our desires for His desires is how we follow, then the idea of publicly professing our belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the natural conclusion.

If we are willing to give up our desires to follow God’s will for our lives, then we should be willing to say all of that in public for others to hear and possibly decide for themselves if they wish to do the same. This is a way of life that is too good not to share and to important to be kept to ourselves.

Do you openly profess God’s name?

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Rejoice in all circumstances

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV

This is the second devotion for this verse that I promised when I posted Wednesday’s devotional. I wrote about giving thanks on Wednesday and I want to look at rejoicing always today. The world would have us living life by a set of standards that places us in a mindset of negativity and a lifestyle of complaining. As I said on Wednesday, thankfully we don’t have to live by the world’s standards.

As a Christian, we have a different set of standards to live by, the ones put in place by Jesus. His idea of how to live is usually the exact opposite of what the world views as the way to live. The world will tell you that you should only feel and express the emotion that fits with the circumstance you are in. For example, if you are in a disagreement with another person, then you should feel angry or hurt by the situation and therefore you should express anger or sadness, possibly even entertain the idea of revenge. The way that Jesus instructs His followers to face that situation, is to have the emotion of anger or sadness, but to then give it to God, and choose to express love for the other person or show forgiveness for their part in the situation. See, the exact opposite.

The reason that Christians can choose to express joy at any time is because our joy is not determined by our situation, but by the fact that we are God’s children. If we rely on our situations to be joyful, then we are only joyful when the situation calls for it. Situations change which means our emotion changes per the world, but God doesn’t and since we are to base our joy in Him, our joy does not have to change. Even in some of the most difficult times in Christians’ lives, joy can be found.

As a Christian, an expression of joy in a difficult time doesn’t mean that we don’t experience other emotions such as sadness. Jesus isn’t saying we should not feel our emotions, we should, we are not robots. The difference is what we are choosing to do with our emotions at that moment. The world would say we are to remain in the sadness, where Jesus is telling us that we are to focus on Him and remain in the joy that we have because we are connected to Him. We are connected to Him because Jesus is always with us. As a child of God we can remember that situations change but God doesn’t change, we can count on Him remaining the same.

Are you able to rejoice in all things?

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Thanksgiving

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7 NIV

I know that I have written about these verses before, however, I purposely did not write about the last section of them during that post. I wanted to save this portion of the verse for today, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has always been a special holiday for me. I have always loved the food that is associated with this day. I have always loved the idea of having people gather and celebrate what we are thankful for in our daily lives.

When I still lived at home, my mother would invite her friends and people she worked with to Thanksgiving dinner, especially if she knew that they didn’t have family locally. Over the years, my husband and I have developed a tradition of opening our home up to our extended family’s friends for any occasion. Today is not going to be any different. We are blessed today to have several people outside of our immediate family join us to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for the ability to be able to share what the Lord has blessed me and my husband with. I am thankful that the Lord brought me and my husband together and that my husband is such a giving person. I am thankful for the many blessings the Lord has given me and my family such as heat, clothes, food, a home, jobs, relationships, love and most importantly eternal salvation.

If you would like, please leave a comment about what you are thankful for, what you have been graciously blessed with. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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The Belt of Truth

“Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist,” Ephesians 6:14a

The belt was an important part of the soldier’s armor as it held the breastplate in place as well as carried the sheath for the sword. It is no wonder Paul mentions it first. In John 14:6, Jesus is comforting His disciples as He talked about leaving them by telling them that He is the way, the truth, and the life. So what does Jesus mean when He said he was the truth? Jesus is telling His disciples and us that He is The Authority regarding spiritual wisdom and reality. If you want to know how to live a spiritual life that is focused on the truth, then following Jesus is the answer.

Through His word, God teaches us how to think, how to feel, how to react to situations and how to live in accordance to His will. He made us to be in a relationship with Him, to live in such a way that we are walking in His will. We can only do that when we know the Truth about who God is and we find that out by studying the Bible and commentaries. The truth is very important, it is where we all need to begin in our walk of faith and without the truth, the rest of the armor falls apart. It is hard to know who we are in Christ, which we will talk about tomorrow, if we don’t know the truth about who Christ is. Our armor needs the belt of truth to connect the rest of it together.

Do you know who God is? God is the creator of heaven and earth, He is the reason we are alive and able to seek Him. He created us to be in fellowship with Him, He is our Father and we are His children. Following God is the only true way to live and is the only way we are able to live in eternity forever with Him.

I implore you this morning, to dig into God’s word and find out for yourself who God is and what the truth means to you. For me, knowing that the devil is the father of lies and that God is the father of truth helps me to stay focused on making sure my thoughts line up with what I know is in God’s word about who He is and how He wants me to live my life so that I can glorify and honor Him in all that I do. Trusting God, who is the truth, is the best and only path that we should be on in this life. I pray that as you search God’s word, that you find out the wonderful truth about God and build your walk with Him on that truth, which is a sure foundation. Have a wonderful day.

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The Truth

“Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 NIV

What truth is John telling us about? Earlier in the 8th chapter of John, he is recounting the interaction between Jesus and some Jewish leaders. They were trying to test Jesus, hoping that He would make a mistake so that they would have cause to have Him arrested. However, as they usually did, they were not able to accomplish what they set out to do and as Jesus usually did, He used this interaction as a moment to teach them about their sins, Himself, and what the Son of Man came to earth to do, save mankind.

When Jesus tells them that when they know the truth, it will set them free, they became upset stating that they were not in need of being freed from anything. They could not see that they needed freed from their sin. Unrepented sin keeps us in bondage to that sin. The truth Jesus is speaking of is the spiritual truth of how sin is separating us from God and how believing in Jesus as the Son of God leads us to forgiveness, which is the way to bring us closer to God. Believing in Jesus, repenting of our sins and accepting the gift of forgiveness enables us to move closer to God.

By asking for forgiveness for our sins, we are acknowledging them and bringing them out of the darkness and into the light. The devil wants to keep our sins in the dark because when we keep our sins in the dark, we stay focused on hiding the sin from others and sometimes ourselves. When we bring our sin into the light and talk with Jesus about them, they lose the level of control that they can have on us. As darkness has to flee when light enters a room, the devil flees when we move closer to our Light, Jesus.

Knowing the truth, which is that Jesus is God and came to save us, all of us, and that we can be released from the bondage of sin, is true freedom. I pray that you have that freedom, that you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and that you are now a co-heir with Christ.

Have a beautiful day!