God

Waiting on a Big God

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Waiting on a big God is a very important part of growing spiritually. Although none of us likes to wait, God seems to have a particular liking for making people wait for Him to act. The Bible is full of people who had to wait on the Lord. Moses waited 40 years before he led the people of Israel out of Egypt. Abraham waited 24 years until the son promised to him by God was born. The Bible has many verses that command us to wait on the Lord.

Psalm 27:14 (NIV) Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

It’s a strong person who learns to wait on the Lord. The bigger your perception of God, the more patient you will be in waiting for Him. If I pull up to the drive-though lane for a fast food restaurant, five minutes is too long to wait. However, if I have an appointment to meet with the President of the United States, I will wait until he shows up. God is far more important than the President.

Waiting on a big God has a lot to do with trusting God’s promises.

Hebrews 6:12 (NIV) We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Impatience is a form of laziness. In order for God’s promises to be fulfilled in your life, you need both faith and patience. It’s takes patience to keep on believing God until the answer to your prayer comes.

Why does God make us wait? There are a lot of reasons. First of all, the world does not revolve around one person. God’s purposes in the world are enormous and involve many people and interrelated events. Oftentimes, things that we want to happen yesterday, need to be waited on for God’s perfect timing. Probably, one of the most important reasons that God makes us wait, is that waiting changes us for the better. Waiting on God builds your faith, your patience and your strength.

Isaiah 40:31 (NASB95) Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

Waiting on the Lord, empowers you with God’s strength. Sometimes you have the strength to effortless wait on God like an eagle soaring in the sky. At other times, God gives you to strength to keep on running until you reach the end of the race. However, there are times when God will give you just enough strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other without becoming weary.

What are you waiting on God for today? What promise in God’s Word are you praying will be fulfilled in your life? When you wait on the Lord, you will be tempted to give up. You will be tempted to think that God is not big enough to come through. Resist those temptations. Be strong, take heart and continue waiting for the Lord until the answer comes.

Listen to my May 31, 2009 message “Waiting on a Big God.”

A Life of Surrender

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Everyone surrenders their life to something. Some people surrender their lives to drugs or alcohol. Others surrender their lives to career or fame. Yet others surrender their lives to pursuing whatever gives them happiness. Whatever you surrender your life to is what you worship, whether you realize it or not. What you worship is what you become like. So be very careful what you surrender your life to.

Jesus said in Mark 12:30 (NIV) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Jesus is talking about surrendering all you have, mind, emotions and strength to God. To love God in this way is the only appropriate worship a created person can offer their creator. God has given you everything you have, everything you are, as a gift. When you surrender it all back into His hands, He will direct you to fulfill the purpose He created you for. Anything less than God’s purpose is a waste and leads to heartbreak.

The problem for many people is that they simply do not believe that God knows what is best for their lives. So they choose not learn from God’s Word about God’s plan for their lives. They have it all figured out or so they think. Not surrendering to God’s plan for your life leads to bondage to whatever you surrender your life to. Not surrendering to God leads to stress, tension and worry. Not surrendering to God’s purpose results in a weak life that accomplishes little of value.

Make a choice to surrender your mind, your emotions and your abilities to God. Say to God, whatever you want me to do, I will do. Wherever you want me to go, I will go. Surrender your life to the God who loves you more than you love yourself. Surrender = Worship. Romans 12:1 (NLT) And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.

Do you long for a life of adventure? A fulfilling life doing things that make a difference? A life that will powerfully impact people’s lives for eternity? Surrender your life to Jesus and He’ll make it happen.

The Money Idol

God, Life / By /

What is the biggest idol of all time? Jesus taught that the biggest distraction to serving God was money. Matthew 6:24 (NIV) No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. If money is your master, then it is your idol, the money idol.

Now, the Bible does not teach that there is anything wrong with money persay. Money becomes an idol when you begin to serve it. Jesus taught that some people try to serve money and God, but it can’t be done. If you serve money at all, money is your master, your idol. Money becomes your idol when you begin to love it. 1 Timothy 6:10 (NIV) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. When you love money, you begin to sacrifice your principles, your relationships and your common sense in order to get more of it. When you love money, you never have enough, you are never content. When you love money, you do stupid things with the money you have, like gambling or playing the lottery in order to try to get more. When you love money, you sacrifice your family relationships in order to get the highest paying job, no matter how many hours you have to work. When you love money, you sacrifice your relationship with God and His church. You cannot serve both God and money.

People who love the money idol store up money and possessions on this earth for themselves. Matthew 6:19 (NIV) Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. People who love God use their money to store up treasure in heaven. Matthew 6:20 (NIV) But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. If your treasure is on this earth, money is your idol. If your treasure is in heaven, God is your master.

How do you store treasures in heaven? First of all, realize that all you have including your money, is not yours to do with as you please. Everything that you have, including your money, is a gift from God to be invested for God to achieve a return for God. It’s not your money, it’s God’s. The Bible contains over 2350 verses describing God’s instructions on how to use your money for Him. To lay up treasures in heaven, follow God’s instructions. Secondly, the most important principle in the Bible about money is to be generous with it. Give it back to God and bless other people with it. Give to God first and then trust Him to meet your families’ needs. Luke 16:10-11 (NIV) Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? If God sees that He can trust you with the little money you have now, He will trust you with greater responsibility and resources in the future.

How To Be Influential

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If you’re a believer, God wants you to be an influential person. He doesn’t want you to be influenced by the world, but rather to be a positive influence on people around you. Romans 12:2a (NIV) Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Unfortunately, many believers have not had their minds renewed by God and they think in the thought patterns of the world. You’re not going to be very influential if you’re just like everybody else. In this post, I want to help you renew your mind with what Jesus taught about becoming a person of influence.

Jesus taught two important ways that believers are to be influential in society. The first way is to influence others against evil. Matthew 5:13 (NIV) You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. Salt has the property of being a preservative against decay in foods. Believers are to take a stand against evil and sin in society by speaking out and acting against it. Of course, if you give in to sin yourself, you have absolutely no credibility to influence others against it. However, if you retain your saltiness, then you can warn others against the dangers of sin. If you don’t take a stand against evil, you’re going to get trampled upon, which is where a lot of fearful and ashamed believers are today. Wake up, be salt.

The second way to be influential is to influence others for good. Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV) You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. Jesus’ second metaphor of an influential believer is that of light. Jesus came as the light of the world and believers are to be the light of the world. Light illumines, light dispels the darkness and guides to the truth.

The world tries to get believers to hide their lights, saying, “It’s just your private opinion, keep it to yourself.” Jesus says, forget the world, listen to me. Let your light shine by doing good deeds, so that people will praise God. It’s not just a matter of doing good deeds, since then people will praise you. To be influential for God, you must do good deeds and let people know that you are doing them for Jesus. Then your good deeds will serve as light, drawing others out of the darkness into the marvelous light of Jesus Christ.

Are you an influential person? Are you being salt and light to the world around you? Are you consciously influencing others against evil and toward good? If not, ask for God’s help, it’s a prayer He loves to answer. God make us influential believers for you.

Three Tests Of Eternal Life

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The worst possible surprise that anyone could have is to realize on judgment day that they aren’t going to heaven, but to hell. Pollster George Barna tells us that only 0.5% of American adults think they will go to hell, most think they are going to heaven. Most people think they are Christians and have eternal life. Jesus tells us that there are going to be a lot of surprised people on judgment day. Matthew 7:22-23 (NIV) Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Actually the claims of the people around us won’t be nearly as impressive as those Jesus talks about. People today will say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not attend church on Christmas and Easter, were we not basically good people, weren’t we baptized in church?” and they will get the same answer from Jesus.

How can a person avoid being deceived about whether they have eternal life or not? John wrote the book of 1 John for the following purpose. 1 John 5:13 (NIV) I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. The book of 1 John gives three tests that anyone can use to test themselves to see if they are going to heaven. You must pass all three tests to know whether you have eternal life.

Test one can be summarized with the question, “Do you believe right?” 1 John 4:15 (NIV) If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. To believe right is to believe what the Bible tells us about Jesus and to trust your life to Him. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the divine, perfect Son of God who became human to save humanity. Jesus took our sins upon Himself on the cross to pay the penalty of eternal death so that believers might have eternal life. However, 41% of American adults believe that Jesus sinned when He lived on the earth. They don’t believe right and don’t have eternal life. 1 John 2:22 (NIV) Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist–he denies the Father and the Son.

Test two is the question, “Do you live right?” The reason the next two tests are important is that a lot of people have fooled themselves into thinking they believe in Jesus. If you truly have believed in Jesus, then you will pass the second and third tests. If you are fooling yourself, you will not pass these tests. 1 John 2:3-4 (NIV) We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. In other words, John is saying that those who have eternal life consistently obey God’s commands and do not continue to live in sin. If someone does not obey God’s commands and continues to sin, they do not have eternal life. Now, John does not say that a believer is perfect and never sins. However, a believer does not engage in habitual sin.

The third test is the question, “Do you love right?” 1 John 3:14 (NIV) We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. In today’s world, a lot of people have dropped out of church. They think they can live a faith-filled life on their own without the so-called hypocrites in the church. John is telling us here that if you don’t love other believers enough to be part of a church family, you aren’t a believer, you’re fooling yourself.

Three tough tests. How did you do? If you failed a test today, you can still do something about it. If you fail on judgment day, it’s all over for eternity for you. If you failed any test, you need to go back to test one and make sure that you truly believe. To believe in a biblical sense is to commit your whole life to Jesus Christ. To believe is to not only trust Jesus to forgive your sins, but to trust Him enough to obey everything He tells you to do. When you believe like that, when you acknowledge Jesus as Lord, then you will pass the second and third test easily.

The Mystery of Unanswered Prayer – Part 1

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One of the mysteries of the Christian life is unanswered prayer. There are many promises in God’s Word regarding God answering prayers. One example is given by Jesus in John 14:12-14 (NIV) I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. On first glance, someone may take these verses to suggest that they should receive answers for anything they ask God for. However, this doesn’t happen for most people and they may become discouraged in prayer. In this post, I want to begin to explore some of the common reasons for the mystery of unanswered prayer.

I am going to assume that the person praying is a believer, that is, they have admitted their sin to God, believed that Jesus died to forgive that sin and have committed their lives to following Jesus as their Lord and Savior. To grow in your prayer life, you must understand what God teaches about answering prayer. Almost all of God’s promises in the Bible are conditional. A conditional promise is one that will only be answered by God if you meet the conditions. Some conditions for promises are found in the promise verses themselves and other conditions are found in other related verses in Scripture. If you meet the conditions of God’s Word for His promises, God always keeps His promises.

James 5:16b (NIV) The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Prayers that are powerful and effective are certainly prayers that are answered. The implied condition for powerful and effective prayer in this verse is the character of the person praying the prayer. James says that the prayer of a righteous man will be answered. A righteous person is first and foremost a believer, someone who has trusted in Jesus’ righteousness to forgive their sins.

However, the righteousness of a believer must also be a practical righteousness that is lived out. 1 John 3:7 (NIV) Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. A true believer is someone who does what is right, they live with a practical righteousness. What happens when a true believer sins? 1 John 1:9 (NIV) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If a believer sins, they must immediately confess their sin and ask for God’s forgiveness to be purified from their unrighteous behavior. The problem is that many people continue to live in known sin without confessing and turning away from it.

Unconfessed sin therefore is a major cause of unanswered prayer. Psalms 66:18 (NIV) If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; To cherish sin in your heart is to hang on to it, to not confess it and turn from it. When someone has unconfessed sin in their hearts, God does not listen to their prayers and the prayers are not answered. Peter shows us a practical example of this by warning that if husbands do not treat their wives properly, it will hinder their prayers from being answered. 1 Peter 3:7 (NIV) Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Problems in your marriage relationship, caused by not respecting your spouse, will lead to unanswered prayer.

In some churches, there is very little emphasis on righteous living. Many believers have areas of their lives that they have not submitted to Jesus Christ and are indulging in known, often habitual sin. This sin is often excused as being small and inconsequential. However, any unconfessed sin will decimate your prayer life. What makes this such a mystery for many is that you may be praying a prayer that truly is God’s will, but sin in another area of your life will prevent God’s answer from coming. In effect, sin short-circuits God’s answers to your prayers.

A viscous cycle then ensues in which people blame God for not answering their prayers. Their faith grows weak and they often give up on praying at all. The solution is to confess your sin, turn away from it and begin to live righteously through the power of God. This removes one of the most common hindrances to unanswered prayer, the hindrance of unconfessed sin. In The Mystery of Unanswered Prayer – Part 2, I will look at another cause of the mystery of unanswered prayer.

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