The gospel emboldens us to not draw back when others push back against our countercultural loyalty to God and His ways.  Because Jesus has overcome sin, Satan and death, we can have courage; the kind of courage that does not shrink back from saying and doing the right things no matter what people might think of us, what might happen to us, and what it might cost us if we remain faithful to Jesus.  Our courage and encouragement are based on this truth:  Jesus has overcome all the tribulations, troubles, trials, tests, and temptations of this world!  And… He is for us.  He is with us.  He is coming to get us.

One word that defines every genuine Christian is this:  perseverance.  That is, those who are heaven-bound keep going until they get there.  Grace will make sure that they do! He who has called us is faithful to keep us! So… If you find that serving Jesus feels fruitless or pointless, keep serving.  If you find yourself fighting back discouragement and fighting for joy, keep fighting.  If you find yourself tempted to give in to the world and its ways, keep resisting.  There will be many moments that you fail and fall, but don’t despair.  Trust in Jesus and trust in this: He will pick you up and power you on… so you can keep going.

Following Jesus means leaving some places, people, and pursuits behind to go wherever Jesus leads us, to do whatever Jesus says to us when we get there. It also means being faithful in the season, situation and spot He has already led us, to do whatever He brought us here to do.  Sometimes this faith journey will require us to go to hard places, have hard conversations, do hard things, endure hard circumstances and deal with hard people.  But Jesus will be with us every step of the way to make a way for us to take every step.  Be encouraged!  He never said it would be easy; He only said it would be worth it.

You are not someone else; someone else is not you.  God has ordained that each of His children be equipped with gifts, abilities, opportunities and resources to fulfil a specific purpose in a specific place to a specific people.  Some are more visible and more vast than others, but all are important. To avoid falling into the trap of comparison as we seek to live out the plans Jesus has for us in His kingdom, it is important for us to remember that the measurement of godly stewardship is not fruitfulness, but faithfulness.  It is not the size of your platform that is most important; it is what you do with what you have been given.

God never freaks out.  There is never panic in heaven.  Things never start to unravel in such a way that even a single situation in all of the universe is beyond His sovereign rule.  Even the evil things done by His enemies to His people will be turned around to serve His purposes. No matter what we face today, let us remember that what happens in our lives is not ultimately decided by chance or luck, humans or demons, Satan or self, but rather there is a good, wise, powerful, loving King who reigns over all for the good of all those who trust Him.  Things are often out of our control, but they are never out of His.

It’s a fact.  It’s a certainty.  It’s a promise.  God will provide for your every need.  But He often won’t do this in the way you think He will. Instead, He will astonish you with a “didn’t see that coming” choice of the 81^st way you might have thought He’d come through for you.  It may come through a shepherd boy instead of a warrior, an ark instead of fair weather, a few fish instead of ample supplies, a manger instead of a throne.  But it will come exactly when it is needed to accomplish exactly what is needed.  Today, expect God to work in your life for good.  Just don’t expect Him to do it like you think He will.

How much authority does the Bible have in your life?  How is it shaping the way you see the world, the way you see polarizing issues, and the way you see yourself?  How fully and frequently do you rely on it as the final say in how you live?  The Bible isn’t an out-of-date, out-of-order, out-of-touch book with no real relevance for us today.  It is God’s Word that still speaks today telling us what is good and bad, right and wrong, true and false, beautiful and ugly, necessary and frivolous, wise and foolish.  God intends for us to seek it out and live it out as the ultimate authority for the Christian life.  Indeed, it is where life is found.

God wants you to be great.  But… It’s not about size.  It’s not about strength.  It’s not about superiority. It’s not about success.  At least, not in the ways that the world calculates those things.  In the world we live in, the more people who serve you, the greater you are.  In the kingdom of God, the greater you are, the more people you serve.  God intends for your greatness to be in ways that are radically different than the world’s standards, for He measures greatness in the cross of Jesus Christ and in every act of His children that expresses that same kind of servant love towards those in need of it.  By grace, be great today.

There are days when our faith falters, but Jesus does not abandon us.  There are days when we feel like giving up, but Jesus does not let us. There are days when we are too overwhelmed to carry on, but Jesus does not move on without us.   Jesus came from heaven to earth to make a way for sinners like you and me to go from earth to heaven.  And every step we take together is assured because of His willingness and faithfulness to do the Father’s will:  namely, to keep us until the end of this life and raise us up at the beginning of the next. Rejoice! We will remain faithful to Him because He remains faithful to us.

It’s so easy to give up on people who don’t seem to get it or don’t seem to care.  It’s so easy to distance yourself from people who are negative.  It’s so easy to walk away from people who don’t agree with us.  It’s so easy to check out of relationships when we give more than we receive.  But don’t stop showing people the love of Jesus, because it is the love of Jesus that can soften a heart, transform a life, rewrite a story, and impact an eternity.  Though it is sometimes hard to do good to others, let us never give up on people by remembering that Jesus never gives up on us.  As He does for us, may we do for others.

Crawling comes before walking.  Planting comes before harvesting.  Starting comes before completing.  There is an order to things, and for followers of Jesus… Praying comes before doing.  You and I often handle things backwards from how we should handle them by acting and then seeking God when we should seek God and then act. The best thing we can do to handle what we face in life is to seek our Heavenly Father before we do a thing more.  We ask. He answers. We act. He assists. This is the only way to live happy, holy lives. Turning to Him shouldn’t be our last resort; it should be our first line of defense.

Satan wants to convince us that our doing good isn’t actually doing much good.  He will skew the facts, point to the wrong metric, and mislabel our actions as failures.  But God doesn’t measure our success by social media likes, comments and shares.  God sees us quietly toiling behind the scenes loving Him by loving others and measures our success not by our fruitfulness or fanfare, but our faithfulness.   What’s even more encouraging is this:  God is working through us in ways that are unknown to us.  So… keep on faithfully serving King Jesus because it all counts. Nothing you do for His kingdom will ever be wasted.

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.

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!

Others need us to point them to where they can go for help in hardships.  Others need to believe us because they see us going there ourselves. The people in our lives need to see us suffer well, handling hardships with hope because we have Jesus in our lives.  They need to see and hear our joy-filled, hope-filled, peace-filled confidence in this:  He will get us through every test, trial and tribulation until He gets us home. As we walk through seasons of suffering, let us testify to the faithfulness of Jesus in walking with us so others can know, that because grace is available, they never have to walk alone either.

Health will thrive and decline.  Leaders will come and go.  Portfolios will gain and lose.  Relationships will flourish and break.  Careers will advance and falter.  Pleasures will intensify and fade.  Only the steadfast love of God for us in Christ will remain forever.  It stays with us through the good and bad, the highs and lows, and the gains and losses of this world.   Let us anchor our lives to the unchanging, unending faithfulness of God’s love for us, knowing this:  It will never decline, go, lose, break, falter or fade, but will endure to the end of this life and extend into the life to come where it will thrill us forevermore.

God’s love for you does not rise with every new entry on your resume’ and does not fall with every new entry on your rap sheet.  God’s love is not based on your performance as if He only cares about you when you get it right.  You are loved; not because you are perfect, but because you are His.  You are valued; not because of what you have made of your life, but because you were made by Him.  You are treasured; not because you cross off items on a checklist, but because Jesus died on a cross for you.  God will continue to shape you into the person He made you to be. But He deeply loves the person you are today.

You were made to influence the world for good in such a way that God gets the credit.  God calls you.  God prepares you.  God sends you.  God empowers you.  God uses you.  God rewards you.   He gives you a platform to shine light into the surrounding darkness.  He gives you a platform to salt the surrounding flavorlessness.  Why?  So others come into the light.  So others taste the flavor. Christians are salty and shiny when they make God and His kingdom taste and look good through what we say and do, so that others find their way to happiness in Him and He is honored in them.  Be salty.  Be shiny.  Be like Jesus.