Author: admin

God allows us to suffer difficulties and hardships for a purpose. God led the children of Israel to wander through the wilderness for forty years in order to humble them and test them. When they refused to obey Him and enter the Promised Land, the Israelites revealed that they did not really know Him. If they had, they would have had more faith. God spent the next forty years testing the hearts of His people to see if they were prepared for His next assignment.

Testing reveals what is in your heart and produces a robust faith (James 1:3, 12). God allowed His people to hunger so they could experience His provision and develop a deeper level of trust in Him. As the people walked with God they came to understand that their lives depended upon His Word. They learned that God’s Word was the most important thing they had. After depending on God for forty years while living in the desert, the people listened when God spoke, and they believed. When they finally entered the Promised Land and waged war against their enemies, the Israelites knew that God’s word meant life and death. They were prepared to listen to Him, and as a result He led them to an astounding victory.

Is God presently testing you in some area of your life? What has His testing revealed? Have you become bitter toward God because of where He has led you? Or have you come to trust Him more as a result of what you have gone through?

Our generation lacks a sense of wonder and reverence toward God. We want to bring God down to our level, to the commonplace. He is God! Though we have direct access to Him as His children, we ought never to forget that this access was purchased with the precious blood of His only Son. No one who truly understands this ever enters God’s presence without a sense of holy awe. No one who comprehends the incredible price paid at Calvary ever takes his relationship with God for granted.

We will never truly understand God and the way He relates to us unless we first comprehend a true sense of His holiness and His demand for holiness among His people. If we are in God’s presence, we are on holy ground! We must never act as if it were God’s purpose to make us successful. It would be preposterous for us to become impatient when God does not answer our prayers when and how we think He should! He is God, we are not!

As you meditate on the price Jesus paid to give you access to the Father, you will come to treasure your prayer times with Him. Worship will become a privilege you seize with gratitude. Scripture will be dear to you as you strive to be holy in all that you do (2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Pet. 1:15).

If you have lost your wonder at the incredible gift of salvation that has been given to you, you need to revisit the cross and witness your Savior suffering for you. How priceless God’s gift of salvation is!

This verse is one of the most practical we will ever encounter in the Bible. Every one of us faces needs in our lives; at times, they are beyond our own means. Those are not the times to become anxious or to panic. Nor should we give up in defeat. It is at these times that God wants to draw from His unlimited storehouse to meet our need as only He can.

Do you believe God can meet the needs of your finances? Your health? Your children? Your parents? Your church? Scripture says you will never face a need for which God’s provision is not more than adequate. This promise appears over and over again in the Scriptures (Ps. 116:6; Heb. 4:16; Matt. 6:8; Ps. 69:33). If you are not experiencing God’s bountiful provision, what is the problem? Is the difficulty with God? Or could it be that you do not really believe that God stands ready to meet your every need?

Every resource of God is available to any child of God who will believe Him. No one has ever exhausted God’s supply nor suffered a shortfall when trusting Him. Unfortunately, some Christians live as if God’s abundant resources were not available to them. They are children of the King, but they live like beggars! Would the people close to you affirm that your life gives evidence of an unwavering belief that God will do what He said?

The moment you are born again you receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the gift. God doesn’t give you some thing, He gives you Himself. The Holy Spirit is God. As He lives out His life through you, you have almighty God dwelling within you, carrying out His purposes. The Spirit will manifest Himself through your life, not for your good alone, but for the benefit of those around you.

The Spirit will lead you to a church body where He can minister through you to each person in that body (1 Cor. 12:18). God does not add you to a church body so you can be an observer. The Spirit has an assignment for you within the body, and He will equip you by His presence for this work.In the Old Testament, God gave specific assignments to His servants and then placed His Spirit upon them to enable them to accomplish their work. In the New Testament, God placed each member as a vital part of a living body. He placed His Spirit within each believer and manifested Himself through the believer to encourage and equip every other member of the body. What an exciting commission from God! Today the Holy Spirit equips believers because He has given each of His servants a task.

How is the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life benefiting those around you? God has equipped you with exactly what is needed for the edification of the body in which He has placed you. If you allow the Holy Spirit to work freely within you, others will be blessed as a result.

Moses was going through the routine of his day when he noticed an ordinary thing: a burning bush. Moses also noticed something extraordinary. Although the bush was burning, it was not consumed. Moses turned aside to look more closely. When the Lord saw Moses turning aside from the routine of his day, He spoke to him. Everything God had been doing for forty years in Moses’ life was culminating in this moment. So much of God’s redemptive plan waited for Moses to notice the uncommon in the midst of the common.

There will be times when, immersed in the ordinary details of life, you may be oblivious to the extraordinary that is right next to you. You can be in the midst of a common moment, only this time the activity is filled with the presence of God. There may be times when, in the middle of your harried day, you notice something unusual. Your first reaction might be “I’m too tired to go aside to investigate this!” or “I’m not going to disrupt my life for this.” Yet, in that moment you may have the opportunity for a unique encounter with God.

God usually speaks out of the ordinary experiences of life. Often, it is not while you are worshiping at church. Many of God’s most profound and history-changing encounters come during the ordinary experiences of life. When you see the unusual in the midst of the mundane, don’t continue business as usual. It may be that God has ordained that moment to be a life-changing time for you and those around you.

Knowing God through experience is radically different than knowing about God from a theology textbook. According to the Bible, you cannot say you know God unless you have experienced Him (Phil. 3:8, 10). Biblical knowledge always involves experience. You may become discouraged because the truths you read about in the Bible are much richer than the reality of your own experience.

If you have not experienced God’s power at work in and through your life, do not settle for a secondhand knowledge of God’s power, rejoicing in what He has done in others. Jesus’ prayer was that you would come to know God and His presence in your life and experience. Don’t discount the power of God as described in Scripture simply because you have not experienced it. Bring your experience up to the standard of Scripture, never reduce Scripture to the level of your experience. Don’t settle for a head knowledge of God’s love. Jesus prayed that you would experience the depth and width and height of His love and that you would enjoy God’s full and unending love in the day-to-day experiences of your life.

If you sense there are biblical truths that you are not experiencing, keep that truth before you and ask God to bring it into your everyday experience. Ask God if there are any adjustments you need to make in order to receive His promise. Don’t give up on the promises of God, stay with them until you are fully experiencing them.

What you think about in your unguarded moments reflects what your mind dwells upon. What you speak about when your guard is down is a good gauge of what is in your heart (Matt. 12:34). Your mind needs exercise just as your physical body does. To keep your body healthy, you must be careful what you put into it, and you must exercise regularly. To keep your thoughts pure, you must guard what goes into your mind. To exercise your mind, you must contemplate things that are noble and truths that stretch your mind.

Some Christians allow the world to fill their minds with ungodly thinking. Some people seem drawn to concentrate on the negative, choosing to be pessimistic about everything. Some remain satisfied with thinking of the mundane. Others fail to intentionally place Scripture in their thoughts, choosing instead to adopt human reasoning. Others, however, choose to expose their minds to the truths of God–to that which is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and good.

The things you allow your mind to dwell on will be revealed by the way you live. If you focus on negative things, you will inevitably be a negative person. If you allow unholy thoughts to fill your mind, ungodliness will become common in your life. If you fill your mind with thoughts of Christ, you will become Christlike.

What you fill your mind with is a matter of choice. Choose to concentrate on the magnificent truths of God, and they will create in you a noble character that brings glory to God.

Your relationship with God is largely determined by your faith. When you come to Him, you must believe that He exists and that He is exactly who He has revealed Himself to be in Scriptures. You must also believe that He will respond to you when you earnestly seek Him. Without this kind of faith, you cannot please God. Regardless of the morality of your life, the good works you perform, the words you speak, or the sacrifices you make for His sake, if you do not have faith, you will not please Him. It can be tempting to substitute religious activity for faith in God. Christians may claim they are being “good stewards” of their resources when, in fact, they are wanting to walk by sight rather than by faith (Heb. 11:1). They may refuse to do what God tells them unless they can see all the resources in place first.

You may say, “I love God, but I just have difficulty trusting Him.” Then you are not pleasing to Him. You cannot struggle at the core of your relationship with God and still enjoy a vibrant fellowship with Him! Faith does not eliminate problems. Faith keeps you in a trusting relationship with God in the midst of your problems. Faith has to do with your relationship with God, not your circumstances. Some may say, “I’m not much of a person of faith. I am more of a practical person!” Yet you will never do anything more practical than to place your trust in the Lord! Nothing is more secure or certain than that which you entrust to God.

God’s timing is perfect! When He speaks, the time to respond in obedience is now. We often act as if we have all the time in the world to obey Him, but history doesn’t wait on our commitments. There is no such thing as postponing a decision with God. Either we obey, or we disobey. It is either faith or unbelief, obedience or disobedience.

When God announces that now is the acceptable time, what you do next is critical. How often people have been unprepared when a word came to them from the LORD. God said, “Now is the time for you to respond to Me” and their response was, “But I’m not ready. I have some things I need to do first. I’m too busy!” (Matt. 8:21). God’s timing is always perfect. He knows you, and He is fully aware of your circumstances. He knows all that He has built into your life until now, and He extends His invitation knowing that His resources are more than adequate for any assignment He gives you.

That is why Scripture tells us God is concerned with our heart. If we do not keep our heart in love with Jesus, our disobedience when God speaks could affect the lives of others. When God speaks it is always out of the context of eternity. We don’t have to know all the implications of what He is asking. We just have to know that it is a word from almighty God. “Now” is always the acceptable time to respond to the Lord!

When you became a Christian, God gave you spiritual sight and hearing so you could begin experiencing His presence and activity all around you. The Holy Spirit helps you to develop these spiritual senses as you walk with Him. Spiritual sensitivity to God is a gift that must be accepted and exercised. Scripture indicates that those who are spiritually dead cannot see or understand spiritual things (Matt. 13:14-15). Without spiritual eyes, you can be right in the midst of a mighty act of God and not recognize it.

There is a radical difference between seeing your surroundings from a human perspective and seeing life through spiritual eyes. Non-Christians will see world events around them and become confused. You will look at the same events, recognize the activity of God, and adjust your life to Him. When you meet a person who is seeking God, you will recognize the convicting work of the Holy Spirit and adjust your life to God’s activity (Rom. 3:11). Someone without spiritual perception will encounter that same person and not grasp the eternal significance of what is happening in that person’s life. Others will hear of new philosophies and trends in society and not know how to discern the truth. You will hear God’s voice over the din of the world’s voices, and you will keep your bearings in the midst of the confusing circumstances.

Sin dulls your senses, ultimately leaving you spiritually blind and deaf. Do not be content with merely seeing with physical eyes and hearing with natural ears but not sensing what God is doing. Ask God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to sensitize you to His activity all around you.