God’s Power in Times of Crisis
By · Comments
We are in trouble circumstances are outside our control, and we see no relief for the future. He gives us what we needHis love and strength, a feeling of security, and the understanding that we aren’t alone. Our Lord understands what it is like to suffer, to be declined, or to lose a family member.
The God who walks with us isn’t restrained by anything, so we needn’t be terrified. God has a purpose for permitting hard times.The story of Joseph obviously illustrates this truth. Joseph couldn’t see God’s purposeand neither will we almost all of the timebut he knew God’s personality and trusted Him thru his many trials.
His religion was rewarded when he was able to save his folks. God will never leave you nor forsake you ( Hebrews 13:5 ) and His good purposes will be carried out.
Same As Usual
By · Comments
In what’s likely the oldest book in the Bible, the book of Job, we read, “For man is born for difficulty, as sparks fly upward”. Now there is a statement we want to teach our youngsters and grandkids, beginning today. The message they solidly hear is that God has nothing apart from contentment and accomplishment in store for them if they will trust their lives to Him.
surprisingly, while scraping sores from his sick and pain-racked body, Job asked, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not adversity?” He made that statement replying to his other half’s recommendation to “curse God and die.” She too was damaged from the loss of her kids and the anguish of watching her hubby suffer so extraordinarily.
( as a young evangelist, I came down too hard on Job’s other half.
She required God’s point of view on her agony. ) It was when her man witnessed how deep her grief was that he replied as he did. He wanted her to notice that God isn’t a heavenly bellboy, delivering only nice and comforting things to our door. When tough times happen you’ll find scores of newly released titles querying how a loving God could be so unfair and unjust. It is simple to be confused in one’s experience of God. As with Job and Paul, He continues to permit suffering to form us into humble, helpful servants.
Throw one of us in a dungeon and we wish to talk to our barrister. Fight the enticement to reconsider God just because hard times come.
The World Needs Christians
By · Comments
Paul wrote with pressure, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His dominion : evangelise the word ; be prepared in season and out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction”.to paraphrase, stick with the evangelizing plan God has guaranteed to praise and use.
Don’t try to be so creative and lovable that people miss the truth. No requirement for incomprehensible and mad substitutes that entertain but barely convict the lost and edify the saved. Will you notice something here? This exhortation isn’t addressed to the hearer, it’s for the spokesperson. The person that is to try this is the one announcing the message.be in a position to do it in season and out of season. Don’t stand up straight and commence with an apology that you did not quite have satisfactory time to prepare. That doesn’t wash.” And do so faithfully—when it’s convenient and when it is not.
Unfortunately, in a shocking number of churches today, God’s folks are being told what they need to hear instead of what they have to hear. They’re being fed warmed milk, not solid beef. A watered-down gospel may attract big crowds ( for some time ), but it has no unending impact. I’ve not been capable of finding any place in the Scriptures where God expresses the least bit or worry for drawing numbers. Gratifying the curious itching ears of our postmodern audiences is an exercise in futility.
Candidly , I am planning to continue doing exactly that, by God’s grace, till the day He calls me home. And I believe there’s a fast-increasing number of followers who long for nutritive messages based mostly on the Word of God, not human opinion. The world urgently wants more Christians with the fervor and religion of Paul.
Will you be one of them? Will you respond the charge? If this is the case there’s no finer time than now to start. Jesus asserted, “Go and make followers of all states and I am going to be with you” ( Matthew 28:19-20 NIV ). And by the grace of God, go do it.
Act of Faith
By · Comments
How pleased he’s to see your religion shine as you help folk. Your “service” may be a nice grin, an inspiring word, or a listening ear. In different eventualities, God may ask you to sacrifice your time or give freely of your resources.
The love God gives you for others will prompt you to make some time for them and not count the price. As you pour yourself into loving them, you may discover a feeling of accomplishment and joy. Serving in Jesus’ name also suggests that you are acting in submission to His authority – to explain, doing things in His way and time. To live out your religion is to rely on the Lord God’s power.
Only by yielding to His control can your work yield real non secular fruit. Folks will know your religion is real when your actions exalt God and not yourself. As envoys of Christ, we must serve with excellence so that God receives the glory He merits. Watch for God’s signals and be in a position to act with a zeal to live out your religion.
God’s Plan for the Revival
By · Comments
But He could tell by the blank stares on their faces that they didn’t understand what He had announced. At 1 time, He even overheard them discussing what He meant by “You won’t see me” ( John 16:19 ). These men had been with the Lord for 3 years. They’d giggled with Him, cried with Him, eaten with Him, and were ready to die with Him, or that is what they thought.
They’d just entered the town of Jerusalem. And rather than being met by an irritated legion of guards and protestors, they were met by palm-waving followers screaming : “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Yet as fast as they’d settled into the higher room, Jesus broached the topic of his upcoming death. Right away , the mood of His supporters went from one of party to scare and sorrow.
The resurrection was some days off but they couldn’t fathom its amazing coming. God always supplies the encouragement we want to stay the course, and Jesus did this for His followers when He told them, “Your sorrow will be turned to joy” ( v. This is also God’s message of hope and love for us today.
The Message of the Revival
By · Comments
Think what it must’ve been like to grasp the man you followed for 3 years, who made a claim to be the Son of God, was dead. He had claimed that nobody could take His life from Him – He could lay it down and pick it up again – and that He could call on a legion of angels. But then a note of hope broke through the followers desolation : “He’s alive. “God brought them from the depths of desperation to the height of jubilation.
The most incredible message the world has ever heard is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is a living Lord. While their supporters can go to a crypt and hark back to dry bones, we will sing joyous praises to our Lord, who hears us.
The Son of God is living inside every one of us, and we will not hold the excitement within. Of all of the faiths in the world, ours is the sole one with the proof and the legal right to praise a living God. Jesus is alive at the right hand of God ( Romans 8:34 ) ; He also lives in the heart of each single follower.
Because Jesus Has Risen
By · Comments
Because Jesus is alive, we’ve got the amazing confidence that God is actively concerned in our life. We watch Him work in our hearts and in the lives of other folks. And we’ve got the certainty He has forgiven us of our sins.
Jesus took the penalty we merited, and as we avail ourselves of the cleaning He offers ( one John nineteen ), we experience a replenished sense of fellowship with Him. On the other hand, folks who decide to live without Christ do their own work, not His.
Similarly , they consider their own will, not the Lord’s and spend their time doing what they deem best without giving God an idea.
When they approach death, they think everything will somehow be all right. But folk who haven’t trusted Jesus Christ will end their earthly existence without joy or guarantee.
Having missed God’s specific, private purpose for their life, they’re going to realize that all their cash, status, and notability is like sand – valueless. It’s silly to think that God will make an exception because we’ve been good or done our best. He offers us a free gift of the Holy Spirit so we can enjoy peace and contentment, even in tough times. The abounding life He offers flows over the physical and time-bound constraints of this world into perpetuity – but it is accessible only thru His Son.

A standard problem today is that the majority don’t know the way to deal with conflict – nor do they know the source of real peace.
So we have quickly become a drugged society ; whether drugs are bought over the counter or in the street, the common goal is to flee from conflict. Jesus used the Greek word meaning “to bind together.” Scripturally, peace is the sense of wholeness or inner completeness that brings stability to an individual’s walk, regardless of what is transpiring. Jesus spoke not of peace that comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather of prevailing – that is, undefeatable – peace. The key to enduring peace is present in a relationship. If you need peace that is everlasting, you want to form a relationship with Jesus Christ. We, too, can taste the oneness that He and the Dad experienced.
When the Lord announces, “My peace I give to you,” he’s not referring to a loan. His peace is a free present, available to just about every one of His kids. If we shall focus our attention on Christ, he’s going to give us perfect peace. ( Isaiah 26:3 ) That does not mean we are impervious to unexpected shocks – occasional times when we are thrown off balance by circumstances. But the power of the Lord’s prevailing peace is sufficient to hold us thru anything He permits us to experience.
Following the Path of Faith
By · Comments
Many of us miss God’s purpose for their life because they are waiting for details about what He has in mind. But nowhere does Scripture say that God is obliged to spell out His plan. If He does have something for us to do, His only duty is to show us how and to enable us to do it. If we don’t know the details, our walk with the Lord can appear bewildering. Abram ( later Abraham ) must have felt that way. When God ordered him to pack up and head to a place he’d never been before, the wannabe patriarch potentially marvelled, Lord, why can’t you simply bless me here in Haran?
But God had something bigger in mind than Abram could envision. Feelings, sight, and human reasoning can be awful enemies to our walk of religion. So we might demonstrate religion and rely on Him, God occasionally calls us to a place where feelings, physical vision, and logic are of no help. The Lord wants us, as followers in Jesus Christ, to lay down our own techniques of figuring things out, and to trust Him instead. Which will sound irrational in human terms, but it is totally reasonable in the infinite mind of complete data and knowledge. If you are almost convinced to favor your own logical solution, remember that God is watching from a view point of omniscience. ( Isaiah 55:8-9 ) Like Abram, select to follow the Lord’s instructions.
( Genesis 12:4 ) A step of obedience may feel just like blind religion, but you can completely trust the person that sees all.
The Importance of Relationship
By · Comments
God selected to make you, and He went to extraordinary lengths to protect you from your sins. He asked you to be conformed to the likeness of His Boy and promised to engineer all circumstances to your good. ( Romans 8:28 ) Why would He do so much? The answer’s straightforward. God wishes to have a private relationship with each single one of us. The crisis is that many folks live their entire life never realizing that God truly loves them. In the 13th thru 16th chapters of John, we see many of the Lord’s most personal moments with His disciples.
Christians infrequently think of Jesus only as the Great Intercessor sitting at the right hand of God. But He also wants to be our nearest chum, who inspires and guides us.
God made us for intimacy. He doesn’t need us ; He wants us. Regardless of how many of us in the world love us, we are going to feel unfinished if we don’t recognize God’s love. The single thing that stands between us and God is our sin, from which we are helpless to save ourselves. So our Father made a provision – He sent His Son Jesus, who was completely divine, to take on human form and die on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice. God failed to accept us despite our sin or by ignoring our misdemeanour ; instead, He removed our sin as far as the east is from the west. ( Psalm 103:12 ) Then He went even further and invited us to be His mate. As the hymn writer exclaimed, “Amazing love! How is it able to be!”.