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What is going on? Why is this happening? When will it be over? Where is God in all of this? Life may not be working out the way we hoped it would or wanted it to, but God is doing a thousand things for us today even if we don’t have our spiritual eyes locked in on any of them. Our experience may seem pointless and be painful, but we can be confident that He is walking with us and working for us. 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.

Let’s be honest: It’s tempting to quit doing good in this world when the good we do is not noticed by others, appreciated by others, reciprocated by others or supported by others. Yet, we must remember that none of this is the reason why we do good in the first place. We do good because God has been good to us, is being good to us and will continue to be good to us forevermore. It is His image that we show to the world when we let our lights shine, so that He might be glorified. What a wonderful reminder for today: God is good, and we get to make Him look good, when we do good in His Name.

As we trust Jesus to come through for us, we will be filled with peace when we’re running low, renewed with spiritual energy when we’re running out, helped through difficulty when we’re running down, and kept steadfast when we feel like running away. This is our hope in Jesus: the best is yet to come. Let us believe it, expect it, anticipate it and await it to come true. Let us watch for the daily doses of His grace to appear when we need them. And let us regard the eternal pleasure of heaven with Him as something wonderful on the calendar that is certain to come at the appointed time. Because it is. Because it will.

Many people strive to look stylish, look good and look fit. And while the Bible emphasizes modesty and simplicity for believers, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t value our outward appearance as well. However, it is important that we value who we are more than what we look like. We should focus more attention on our hearts than our hair, our minds than our makeup, our character than our clothes, and our personhood than our physiques. By grace, let us pursue becoming who we were made to be, knowing… Godly character is in style within us. Morals look good on us. Christlikeness is a nice fit for us.

Every day there is a tug-of-war for your thoughts, feelings, motives, attitudes, words and actions, pulling you in the opposing directions of what sin entices you into and what God invites you into. Look to Jesus for help and look for His help to arrive as a way to leave the temptation, the power to say “no” to the temptation, a divine removal of the temptation, the arrival of someone to help you through the temptation, and / or a promise of something worth waiting for that is better than the temptation. Rejoice! You are never helpless against temptation for there is a throne of grace you can run to for help.

There is much I love about my heavenly Father. One thing is this: He doesn’t just let me do anything I want to do. He knows that there are many things I want to do which are not good for me or for other people. So, instead of letting me live selfishly, He removes some things from me in order to replace them with better things. His plans for my plans. His ways for my ways. His outcomes for my outcomes. The result isn’t that I experience less, but that I experience more. More peace. More joy. More hope. More purpose. Remember, when God says “No,” to something, He is saying “Yes” to something better.

When reading the Bible, if you don’t experience both conviction and celebration, you’re not reading it correctly. On one hand, we should not ignore the places where God’s words challenge and correct the way we are living if we are disobedient to His commands. On the other hand, we should not isolate the places where God issues His commands so all we have is a list of “dos and don’ts.” A proper reading and understanding of the Bible should equip us to joyfully do as God intends and encourage us with all that Jesus has done, is doing and will do for us. His doing makes our doing possible and makes it worth it.

We live in a world that is full of exaggerations that routinely don’t live up to the expectations they create. People often make claims that misrepresent reality by making something seem bigger and better than it really is. While there are many stretches of the truth in the words of those around us, the Word of God is a reliable source of truth. Consider what it says about Jesus. The Bible does not over-state, over-hype, over-sell or over-promise on who Jesus is and what Jesus does. As infinitely perfect and infinitely great as He is spoken of in it, Jesus lives up to it. This is our expectation: He is as awesome as He seems to be.

We often hear one thing when God is saying another thing. We hear, “You can’t do that or have that or be that.” God is saying, “That is not good for you.” We hear, “You must do this or have this or be this.” God is saying, “This is good for you.” What we interpret as a restrictive rule, God intends to be a gracious guardrail. While we may think His commands are something that will rob us of joy, He is actually saying them because He knows they will safeguard our joy. Therefore, let us trust Him as we listen to Him. Remember, even when we hear God saying something we don’t like, He is actually saying, “I love you.”

We should never approve or applaud someone else’s sin. But we should also be a lot more gracious with other believers who live differently than we do. It can be helpful to remember that every one of us who is following Jesus does so at varying paces and is at varying places in that journey with Him. Not everyone will… Understand things like we do. Interpret things like we do. Practice things like we do. Rather than criticize others because they aren’t carbon copies of us, let us cheer on others to continue growing in the likeness of Jesus. None of us are as mature as we will be; but we’re also not as messy as we used to be.