It is right to enjoy the good gifts of God in the way that He designed them to be enjoyed because that’s why He gives them to us.   The sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches of the created world are supposed to be enjoyed because God made them to send and made us to receive … pleasure.  But rather than enjoying them too little (ingratitude) or too much (idolatry), let us enjoy them as they were intended, as a catalyst for treasuring the Gift-Giver far beyond what He might give to us.   The gifts that God sends us are wonderful; but they are nowhere near as wonderful as Him.  He is the real gift!

God is great in every way that divine greatness can be measured.  Great in character.  Great in attributes.  Great in essence.  He is great in words and deeds, wisdom and knowledge, power and authority, presence and sufficiency, righteousness and justice, goodness and eternality, mercy and grace, truth and love, sovereignty and glory.  He is so great that we do not have the capacity to understand the height, width and depth of His greatness.  We can only admire it, enjoy it and proclaim it. Let us worship Him now and forever with our hearts, heads and hands, for the right response to our great God is great praise for Him.

God doesn’t need us to do anything for Him as if He could ever be deficient in some area that we could supply for Him.  But our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, teammates, and strangers do need us to do for them.  Not because God is failing to meet their needs, and we should make up for His oversight or indifference, but rather because in His loving providence, He has sent us to bring His aid to them.  God puts us in places where needy people are right in front of us so we can be like Jesus to them by offering a helping hand, a guiding word, and a loving embrace.  He is working all the time and often it is through us.

We were not made to be self-reliant, self-sustaining or self-sovereigns.  God created us to be dependent upon His gracious care and provision, turning to Him and trusting in Him, moment by moment for what we need.   Our wisdom and willpower are inadequate for handling life, but His is infinite, and it is readily available to those who trust in Jesus.  Don’t try to make it on your own.  You were never meant to.  When there is a mile-high mountain or a mountain of little stuff piled up a mile high that is too big for you to climb, perhaps God put it there as a gracious and loving reminder for you to depend on Him.

It’s easy, common and right to feel and say how good God is when the trouble was avoided, the trial has ended or the treasure is received.  Oh, how good He is to us!  But when we don’t get what we want, or when we get what we don’t want, God is still good, and God is still good to us.   His goodness doesn’t disappear when hard things appear; it shines ever so brightly as He works for us to provide all the help we need to endure life’s disappointments, detours and disasters until we get to the other side to something better. Praise Him! For truly… God is good all the time. And all the time God is good.

Since trusting in Jesus is the basis for our hope of eternal life, how can we know that we really trust Him? The short answer is: we look for evidences that the trust we have in Him is changing us.  Genuine saving belief never leaves you the same.  We gradually become less like the world and more like Jesus as we follow Him in faith.  Trusting Him leads to ongoing and loving… Repentance, because we believe what He offers is better than sin.  Obedience, because we believe His ways are always good and right. Confidence, because we believe what He has promised us will happen.  We believe.  We change.  That’s how we know.

The attention of every single consciously awake and aware human being is captured by something at all times.  We are either focused on something that nurtures a deeper love for, stronger dependence on, greater obedience to and better enjoyment of Jesus or something that drains that from us.  Our aim as Christians should be to interrupt the fixation of others on the world and its ways and shine a spotlight on Him, so they can experience the blessings and benefits of knowing Him and the privilege and pleasure of worshipping Him.  Today and every day, as people look at us, let us encourage them to look at Him.

Do you know what your failure is for?  It has a purpose, and that purpose is to help you succeed.  Not just so you’ll try harder next time.  Not just so you’ll be wiser next time.  Not just so you’ll do better next time. But rather so you will rely more fully on Jesus next time.  His strength.  His guidance.  His way.  His plan.  His timing. His help.  The right response to failure is faith, for every person who turns to and trusts in Jesus will win in the end.  Remember this when you find yourself coming up short: Futility and frustration are intended to move you away from self-reliance to Savior-reliance.  And that move is always for the better.

Christians should talk more about what God does than about what we do.  Even when we speak of what we do, it should be as a platform to talk about the enabling power, provision and presence of God in our lives.  We don’t have it all together.  We won’t get it all together.  We can’t keep it all together.  None of us wear capes as if we are super Christians; we wear the righteousness of Jesus.  None of us have magical powers that enable us to do things; we have the power of the Holy Spirit.  None of us belong on the throne of worship; we belong to a Heavenly Father Who does.  Not to us, but to God be the glory!

Jesus is not only a doer of good to you, He is also an un-doer of bad done to you by people. They hurt your heart; He heals it. They distance themselves; He draws near. They sting you with their words; He soothes you with His. They overlook you; He pays attention. They cheat you; He blesses you. They intend you harm; He works it out for good. They judge your sins; He dies for them.  We all do each other wrong, but Jesus begins to make things right in us when we turn to Him, and He will someday make things right in all of creation.  Until then, let us seek His grace when others wrong us and when we wrong others.

If there is one thing you can be sure of, it is this:  people will hurt you.  It may be accidental, or it may be intentional, but it will happen.  There will be things said and left unsaid, things done and left undone, which bruise and break your heart and spirit.  But there is a sweet-like-honey truth to overcome the bitter taste of how others treat you:  Jesus is not like others.  He is a friend who will never betray you, abandon you, disparage you, neglect you, exploit you, condemn you, harm you, mis-prioritize you, belittle you, mistreat you, lie to you, pretend with you, or withhold love from you.  He will only do good to you.

There is often a tension between belief and doubt when things become difficult.  It would be plausible to lose hope and lose heart when facing things that are too much for us to handle if we were forced to handle them alone.  But Jesus has promised to never leave us alone, always supplying the grace we need for the needs we face.  The more we trust in Him, the more we will rely on Him during the unexpected, uncertain and unpleasant difficulties of this broken world.  He will work it out for good as we work out His purposes for us.  With faith all things are not made easy.  With faith all things are made possible.

Dying ready is not about trying hard to do more and be better so God will accept you into heaven when this life is over.  Instead, it’s about trusting in Jesus and the work He has finished on your behalf and, in response, finishing the work that Jesus has entrusted to you.  We don’t work for our salvation; we work out our salvation.  We don’t pay Him back.  We love Him back.  With our hope in Him, we journey homeward in loving obedience (though imperfectly executed) knowing that the death we once feared is actually the doorway to full and lasting joy with Him.  Death is not the end; it is just the beginning.

Living fully is not about having the most fun, experiencing the greatest pleasure, and doing the biggest good in this world as if this place is all there is.  Instead, it’s about the eternal ripple your life can make when you use it for Jesus. That doesn’t mean you leave happiness and helpfulness behind; it means you find it in a more meaningful way. We are to be faithful witnesses for God in the everyday things of life that we’re doing on earth (from cookouts to workouts to hangouts) in such a way that we’ll be glad we did when we get to heaven.  Enjoy blessings.  Do good.  Glorify God.  Live this life in light of the one to come.

We don’t like to think about it.  We don’t like to talk about it.  But death is coming for us all.  We may not be certain of the time of its arrival, but the certainty of its arrival is never in doubt.  Instead of ignoring, downplaying, or fearing it, we should let its reality accomplish two essential and monumental things in our lives:  be purposeful to experience life before death, and be prepared to experience life after death.  Jesus makes both of these possible as we trust Him.  He gives us grace so we can give ourselves to the things that matter most.  In every step of faith, let us rely on Him to help us… Live fully.  Die ready.

God should be praised by every living thing because every living thing was made by Him and for Him.  True of all of creation, this is especially true of those who are a part of the family of God.   He makes us.  He calls us. He pursues us. He redeems us.  He forgives us.  He changes us.  He blesses us.  He encourages us.  He comforts us. He strengthens us.  He keeps us.  He delivers us.  He works through us.  He provides for us. He comes to get us.  He satisfies us forever. It is fitting to praise God for, through Jesus, we are recipients of such unimaginable and unending grace! He has been, is being and will be so, so good to us!

God has written our stories.   We may not know how this chapter ends and the next one begins, but we trust that God knows exactly what He is doing in every scene of our lives.  People aren’t always who they ought to be. Places aren’t always what we want them to be. Plot twists aren’t always what they seem to be.  But God is writing a beautiful story for those who trust Jesus! We don’t know what comes with each new turn of the page, and it won’t always make sense to us, but it doesn’t have to.  Because our faith is in the One who does know the happily-ever-after ending to our story.  After all, He’s the One who wrote it.

God certainly works in supernatural ways at times, but He also works at making supernatural changes inside of His people so we who have been touched by His grace and generosity will pay it forward to others. You can’t do everything, but you can do something to make a difference … one need at a time, one moment at a time, one person at a time. Therefore, show the world His heart for them by being His hands and feet to them.  The church of God, His people, you and me, are His Plan A for blanketing the world with good works and spreading the good news of Jesus everywhere we go.  There is no Plan B.

God is our glimmer of hope during seasons of suffering.  Though we may feel discouraged in our ongoing troubles, we should know that God is near to strengthen us when we are weak, lift us when we have fallen, and rescue us when we are drowning. That’s why we cry out to Him as the God of our salvation.  Praise God, He saves us! He keeps His promises to us, even when we don’t think He has.  He hears us when we pray, even when we don’t think He does.  He works for our good, even when we don’t think He is.   In Jesus, God Himself has entered our suffering to give us hope when it seems like we have none.

There are many things that are true about prayer.  One of them is this:  prayer involves seeking what we need to do what God wants.  We don’t talk to God in order to secure what we need to build our own kingdoms; we talk to God to request what we need to live for His kingdom.  Prayer is not a hotline to heaven we use to override His will so He will give us what we think will make us happy; it is a lifeline to heaven we use to ask Him to show us His will and make us happy with what He gives us.  If we want to pray for what is best for us, this is the prayer that never fails:  Your will be done in my life as it is in heaven.