Author: admin

We may think we trust in God, but the real test of our faith in Him is the length of time we are prepared to wait silently for Him

Waiting is difficult at the best of times! But when our enemies attack or storms come or critics assault us, we desperately want something to be DONE! Yet God often asks us to wait. Waiting can make us feel powerless before the onslaught of our enemies. We feel as if there is nothing we can do. We can begin to panic that our inaction will lead to disaster.

But waiting also indicates that we are fully aware of our inability to solve our problem. It also reflects that we know our only hope is in God. As long as we keep striving, it reveals we still believe we can solve our own problems in our own way.

But if waiting were hard enough, waiting silently is even more difficult! We want to complain. We feel the need to urge God to act, soon! We want to bemoan all of our problems and pain. Yet waiting silently reveals that we are confident God will act in His own good time and way.

Are you currently facing a difficult time? How are you handling it?

Our problem is not that God is not speaking, but that we are not hearing.

If we want to hear God’s thoughts toward us, there is always a word that is close by. God is continually sending His messages to us through a variety of servants.

The servants of God were dispatched first thing each morning. They did not waste time. They did not delay. These faithful servants went to great lengths to make sure God’s people knew God’s thoughts toward them. The problem is never with God.

God’s word is also close to us. It is not a mystery. He wants us to know His will. He has no desire to hide it from us. He knows that His words are our life. We need the to survive. So He regularly sends His messages to us.

Have you been eagerly receiving God’s word through His servants?

It is easy to forget when reading this verse that it is almighty God who is being ignored and neglected. These people had the inestimable privilege of meeting and communing with their Creator and Savior, yet they were too busy.

God met, on time, as He always did. But His people stood Him up. God called, but there was no answer. How tragic when we are too busy to enter a conversation with the words of life. What life transforming moments are missed when we do not respond to God’s overtures?

God is calling. He is continually reaching out to us and our churches. He wants a deeper walk with us. He wants us to enjoy His presence. He desires to dispense life to us.

Are you really too busy?

If we ignore our sins long enough, we will lose our sensitivity to offending God. What was embarrassing and even convicting to us in the past will become second nature in the future. Sin, left unchecked, eventually becomes a habit.

God expressed dismay that His people had become so calloused to their sin that they had “forgotten” how to blush. They had utterly lost their sense of shame.

Such might be said of our nation today as well. Behaviors once considered scandalous are now publicly flaunted. Behavior that would have been roundly condemned a generation before is now laughed at uproariously on prime time sitcoms.

God could well ask of us as well, have we lost our sense of shame? Have we forgotten how to blush?

Such a question goes straight to the heart of our understanding and walk with God. Who do we think God is? And, who do we think we are?

When we draw near to God, we step into the presence of our Creator. Our Judge. The Sustainer of our every breath. With a thought He has humbled world powers. With a look He has destroyed seemingly invincible armies. The eternal destiny of every person who has ever lived rests in His all-powerful hands. He is not someone to treat lightly.

Yet to God’s amazement, His people were prancing into His presence without so much as a second thought. They offered their glib, shallow worship as if they were doing almighty God a favor merely by showing up. God asked where the trembling was.

Do you have a holy trembling occur every time you approach Him. Or have you lost your sense of awe at Who you are dealing with?

The Israelites understood circumcision! Every male had undergone that ritual. Their bodies all carried the sign that they had been set aside as God’s people.

Tragically, however, although the Hebrews carried the physical mark that they were God’s, their hearts often belonged to someone else. God said it was not our outer body, but our hearts that mattered most to Him.

Just as we can undergo rituals and observances to reflect our loyalty to God, so we can also choose to consecrate our hearts to Him. Again, this is something God will not do for us. God may choose us, and consecrate us, but dedicating ourselves to Him is something we must do.

When God looks at your heart, is it obvious that it belongs to Him?

Valentines Day and Hollywood like to glamorize the heart. But the truth is that it has a nasty tendency to harden. The busy traffic that traverses across it as well as the cares and heartaches that inevitably come all tend to make our hearts calloused. If left untended, our hearts gradually grow brittle. As our hearts grow hardened, they become impervious to God’s word as well as His efforts to reach out to us.

God does not look tend our heart. That is something we must do. In fact, God tells us to break up the fallow ground of our heart. That means we are continually softening our heart and making it receptive to receive whatever God has for us.

Hollywood would have us believe that we have no control over our heart. If we “fall out of love” with someone, then it is beyond our control. If we no longer care about someone, then we are not to blame. But God makes it clear that we are to be the masters of our heart. We must irrigate it so it is soft and pliable.

We cannot determine when God might choose to speak to us. However, we can prepare our heart so we are ready to respond when He does.

God has an infinite number of solutions for our problems. One of His most common is to provide us with godly leaders. A man or woman of God can transform even the worst mess we find ourselves in!

God was keenly aware of every person who had backslidden from Him. He desired to bring them back to Himself. First, God drew his wayward people away from where they had been. He removed them from their temptations and distractions. Instead, He took them to a godly place. Second, God provided leaders who would shepherd His people according to His own heart. Such leaders brought the best out in God’s people and kept them safe from backsliding once again.

At times our spiritual condition can deteriorate to the point that drastic measures are required. Staying where we are will continue to produce the same dissatisfying results. Do you presently have a spiritual “shepherd” in your life who is encouraging you and guiding you in the way you should go? Do you need to make some significant changes to find a trustworthy shepherd?

Backsliding is a common term in the church. It usually refers to people who do not attend services regularly as they once did. But of course, there is far more to it than that.

Backsliding means our heart and devotion for Christ have declined in their fervency. It signifies that something has been lost. We are not in the same place with God we once were.

There can be innumerable explanations and excuses for this. “I have been so busy lately!” “I don’t care for the pastor’s preaching.” “I don’t feel like I fit in.” “I am taking a little break.” But the truth is, our heart has turned away from our God.

The remedy to backsliding is to return to God. God has not gone anywhere! We have! So it is our response that is crucial. Thankfully, God not only welcomes us back, but He urges us to come.

Are you in the same place, or even a better place with God than you were last year? If not, is there an area of your walk with God where you have backslidden?

There are cheap substitutes for every aspect of the Christian life. Whatever God does, Satan tries to mimic. He can even feign repentance and revival.

Of course, it is not genuine revival, only a hollow impersonation. In Satan’s version, people appear to have returned to God. They can claim to be sorry for their sin. There is often tears. Yet it is not real. Often the anguish is because of the consequence of their sin, rather than for their sin itself. There may be a sense of guilt, but not conviction. There may also be pledges of fresh commitment, but these are a mirage. Such proclamations will evaporate like the morning dew. It makes a great show in church, but it is nothing more than religious hype.

Kind-hearted people can be fooled into assuming that the professed repentance is genuine. But the truth is it is only skin deep. The heart is unaffected. The moment soon passes and the life of sin is resumed.

We might assume that partial revival is better than no revival at all. But there really is no such thing. If our heart is not fully for God, then we have not returned to Him. We may have thought about returning. We may have expressed a desire to return. We may even have performed outward acts that give the impression of returning, But unless our hearts are once again wholly for God, we have not experienced genuine revival.