While delays, detours and dead-ends can bring about disappointment and frustration, they may be God’s way of blocking us from something He doesn’t mean for us to do or have. What we need to realize is this: when God says “No” to our plans, He is saying “Yes” to something that is far better for us and others who are involved. Many costly mistakes are avoided and many wonderful blessings are gained when He steps in to order our steps. When God graciously reroutes our lives, it is always to put us on the right path.
Jesus Will Always Speak The Truth In Love To Us
What power and courage and hope and peace is ours because of the voice of truth sounding forth from Jesus! But we will not hear these life-giving, chain-breaking, hope-inspiring, course-correcting, God-honoring, truth-telling, joy-producing words if we neglect the Word of God. While He does speak through His Spirit, circumstances and other people, He speaks loudest and clearest in the Bible. We must repent of basing our lives on man’s truth, making up our own unbiblical truths, and neglecting the truth of the Scriptures. Instead, let us strive to read the Bible more frequently, understand it more fittingly, believe it more fully, and live it out more faithfully. Those who listen to it will hear the sweet voice of Jesus bring words fit for the occasion, giving grace to those who hear. We can always count on what He says to be true for us and good for us.
Accept No Cheap Substitutes For Jesus
Every day we are offered cheap substitutes for God and His way of living. They promise us a great deal on getting a better life apart from Him … you can get comfort in food, peace by running from your problems, security in your bank account, self-worth by achievement, guidance via a self-help manual, rest through a weekend getaway, and happiness in whatever makes you feel good for the moment. Yet none of those things lead to full and lasting satisfaction. While they certainly satisfy for a moment, they are never enough. They always leave us wanting something more or something different. But here’s the good news: God has already richly supplied us with every possible blessing in Jesus to satisfy our souls. In moments when we feel our hearts craving better lives than the ones we are experiencing, remember that the source of such a life is found in Jesus. Look to Him for comfort, peace, security, self-worth, guidance, rest and happiness and you will always be satisfied. He is in you. He is with you. He is for you.
Setting Your Mind On Jesus
Every waking hour something has captured the attention of our minds. We never stop thinking. We are constantly entertaining new thoughts, pausing at times to dwell on some of them. These thoughts have the power to shape how we believe and behave, for better or for worse, so we must let our minds land most often on Jesus. The more we think about Him, the more it will rewire how we think about ourselves and others. It will change our perspective on how we interpret our circumstances. It will cause us to reprioritize what matters most so we don’t waste our time on lesser things. It will stir up a healthy fear and trembling before God because of the sin in our lives and thus bring about repentance. It will produce greater joy, peace, comfort, security, strength, hope, and contentment as we rest in what we have come to know about who God is and what God does. We think about everything. Setting our minds on Jesus will change how we think about everything.
If We Knew All That God Knows
For those who are trusting in Jesus, God is always doing much more in us, for us, around us, and through us than we are aware of. All we see is the show, but He is working behind the scenes. All we see is the ship, but He is working beneath the surface. He is precise. He is punctual. He is providential. There is nothing that happens unless it serves His purposes. We don’t have to make sense out of everything that is going on or that we are going through; but we do need to trust that God is tirelessly at work in ways that would make sense if we knew all that He knows.
Removing Things In The Way Of Our Happiness
When we attempt to live as sovereigns over our own little kingdoms, striving to fill them up with all the things we think will make us happy, we will discover that real happiness is elusive, and lasting happiness is impossible. Why? Because frustration and futility are hard-wired into every attempt by God’s people to find soul-satisfaction in something other than Him. He alone knows best how to give us fulfilling lives (far better than anything we can find elsewhere), and when we prioritize pursuing Him, His ways, His kingdom and His plans, He will give us all that is necessary for our full and lasting happiness in Jesus and will remove the things that are in the way of it.
Encouraging One Another To Follow Jesus
Every Christian faces the ever-present danger of distraction, frustration and temptation to become preoccupied with things that don’t matter, things that don’t satisfy and things that don’t last. Everywhere we look are messages that point us in the wrong direction away from God. That’s one of the reasons why God wired us for Christian community: to help each other keep the faith and keep our focus.
We must continually encourage one another to follow Jesus because the world is continually encouraging us not to follow Him.
Nothing You Do For God Is Ever Wasted
The enemy wants to convince you that God isn’t using your life to make much of a difference in this world. He wants to bring you down so he can shut you down. But remember that nothing good you do for others in the name of Jesus is ever wasted. So, don’t give in or give up! Keep doing what you were made to do even when it is hard, unpopular, tiring, inconvenient, thankless, lonely or unnoticed. God is working through you to make a difference that will ripple into and throughout eternity!
An Ongoing Appeal For Your Heart
God has a purpose for everything He allows to happen, and one of them is an ongoing appeal for your heart to come back to Jesus so He can satisfy your soul, quench your thirst, and give you a life that is far better than anything you can dream up for yourself. Let us all look to Him to make us happy, and, in doing so, we will not only be satisfied ourselves, but we will proclaim to a discontent world that nothing in this world will ever satisfy like Him.
To Have Everything; To Have Nothing At All
To gain all that the world has to offer yet not have Jesus is to have nothing at all. To gain all that Jesus has to offer yet not have the world is to have everything.
Fear Not: You Are In The Boat With Jesus
Like the disciples in Mark 4:35-41, you can find yourself terrified by the storm raging around you. But no matter how great the storm that arises in your life, Jesus rules in absolute control over when it rages and when it ceases. If it doesn’t scare Him, it shouldn’t scare you either because you are in the boat together.
Reach out for Jesus today for peace. Be honest with Him about what frightens you, ask Him to calm your heart and give you a fresh faith that He will get you to the other side. Then, worship Him as One who has authority over all things and a purpose for all storms.
The Battle Against Doubting God
There are days when the biggest battle in our lives is not rush hour traffic, temperamental kids, the staff meeting, or a schedule that is already spilling over into tomorrow. It’s not the big fiasco that we are facing or the thousand little things that are nit-picking us to death. No, there are days, perhaps a lot of days, where the biggest battle in our lives is against unbelief. We start to doubt that God cares about what is happening to us and that He is going to do anything about it. To battle unbelief, we must remember God’s faithfulness in the past and remember God’s promises for the future, all of which are “yes” for us because of Jesus. Prayerfully doing this will help us regain our confidence that God has a good reason for what He has allowed into our lives, and that He is actively working it out for our good.
Following Jesus
Following Jesus includes getting out of our comfort zones, heading into the unknown, attempting things beyond our own abilities and resources, traveling hard paths, trying new things and forsaking that which has become too important to us. It also means being faithful where He has already led us, being content with what He has given us now, witnessing to those He has currently placed in our lives, serving Him in this present season, and stewarding what He has entrusted to us “right here, right now”. Your next step may be a small one or a big one, into the familiar or into the unknown. Will you follow Him by faith?
