Satan is a liar. And there is one lie he both whispers and shouts that is the fountainhead from which ten thousand other lies spring forth: God. Doesn’t. Care. He wants you to believe… God doesn’t care about your sin, your struggles, your service or your sorrows. Mainly, the enemy wants you to believe that God doesn’t care about your life. But Satan is the one who doesn’t care about you! God showed His care by sending Jesus to defeat sin, turn struggles around for good, make service meaningful and replace sorrows with rejoicing. All around you are shouts and whispers from God proclaiming one wellspring of truth: “I care.”
It May Be Too Much For You To Handle
God is able to carry the heaviest burden you will ever face and carry you to the other side by His grace. There is no weapon too powerful. There is no mountain too big. There is no task too great. There is no situation too hopeless. There is no adversary too insurmountable. Not. For. Him. Whatever you are struggling with… God will get you over it, under it, around it, through it, or away from it some way until the day comes when every obstacle has been permanently removed. Rest in this today as you trust the day to God: It may be too much for you to handle, but it’s never too much for Him.
He’s Happy With His Choice
God didn’t reluctantly choose you because there was an empty space in His family tree, and He was down to His last option in you. He readily chose you because that spot in His family was reserved especially for you. He doesn’t regret it for a moment, even in those moments when you feel like He does because you have fallen short and failed Him. Because of the moment you put your faith in Jesus… He delights in you. He rejoices over you. He is pleased with you. Whether you stand by His grace and get it right, or fall into His mercy when you get it wrong, you were chosen by God to be with God. And He’s happy with His choice.
The Fountain Of Grace We Are Drinking From
When we remember and rejoice in Jesus’ removal of our own condemnation, we will stop condemning the people around us. For those of us who have received His priceless gift of salvation, there is no condemnation for our sins, though we were rightly deserving of that condemnation. By the lavish grace of God, we are pardoned. Guilty, yet set free. Flawed, yet forgiven. Outsiders, yet welcomed in. Enemies, yet made family. Deserving of hell, yet shown mercy. Wages of death earned, yet eternal life freely given. Instead of condemning others, let us point them to the fountain of grace that we ourselves are drinking from.
If We’re Going To Say Something About Someon …
Here’s the ironic truth about gossip: it says more about the one doing the talking than the one being talked about. Gossip reveals a heart that finds more pleasure in the transfer of information than in the transformation of an individual. It is the opposite of the gospel for it is indifferent to its harmful effect on others, or it is intent on that harmful effect. Rather than pointing out the bad news about others, we should use our words to point to the good news of our Savior. Today, let us fill our minds and our mouths with things that repeat His story. If we’re going to say something about someone else, may it be about Jesus.
Slow Down And Suit Up
God does not send us ill-equipped into battle against the enemy of our soul. Instead, He dresses us in His own armor. In order for us to fight the good fight of faith, we must put on that armor of God … ahead of time, in advance of the skirmish. We put ourselves and others at extreme risk if we wait until the battle begins to ready ourselves for war against sin and evil. The enemy does not allow us to call timeout or grant us a recess to gather our ammunition and put up our shield. This is why we should arm ourselves with a daily dose of God’s instructions, truths, and promises found in God’s Word. Slow down and suit up.
Sin Does This… Jesus Does This…
Sinful indifference to, disregard for, and rebellion against God always disappoints and destroys when it has run its course. God never commands us to stop doing something that is good for us in the end, and He never commands us to start doing something that is bad for us in the end. Faith-birthed repentance and love-driven obedience are always an invitation into something that is better; not only because sin leads us to death, but because Jesus leads us to life. Sin separates us from God; Jesus unites us to Him. Sin condemns us to hell; Jesus brings us to heaven. Sin robs us of real happiness; Jesus gives us full and lasting joy.
We Will Make It
Our journey with Jesus will be full of mountains and valleys, victories and failures, eases and hardships. Yet through it all, we will be empowered by His presence and encouraged by His promises as we rely on Him in faith to keep moving on to our eternal home. He will not lose us on the way. He will not let us lose our way. Through every sinful setback, every stagnant season and every stormy squall, Jesus remains faithful to get to heaven all those who believe in Him. We will keep going. We will endure. We will make it. Not because of anything we can do apart from Jesus, but because Jesus is a part of us, enabling us by God’s grace to persevere to the end.
Because He Remains Faithful To Us
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. We will remain faithful to Him because He remains faithful to us.
What You Do With What You Have Been Given
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.
To Those Who Deserve It The Least
When others wrong us, repaying evil for evil is never the right answer, solution or response. We are commanded to release our instinct for revenge and let God judge, punish and make all things right in His timing and in His way. God will repay, either by accepting the payment made by Jesus on the cross should the evildoers repent and receive His grace, or by making them pay in hell if they do not. Therefore, let us overcome evil with good and leave it to God to do the work He means to do in their lives. We best model the grace of Jesus when we show it most to those who deserve it the least.
He Didn’t Get You This Far…
In this world, we will have tribulation. It’s inevitable. It’s imminent. Trouble has either already made its way into your life, or it is on its way. But… Jesus has overcome the world. His power is greater than our enemies, His sovereignty rules over our battles, His promises reside in our hearts, His forgiveness ensures our futures, His presence empowers our lives, and His grace provides for our needs. That means, though He doesn’t always remove the threats from our lives, He does render them powerless to do anything that would prevent us from joyfully enduring and prevailing in the end. He didn’t get you this far just to get you this far.
Jesus Has Set Us Free
We have been set free! Yes, our past may include terrible things we have done. Yes, our present may be filled with setbacks. Yes, our future may find our lives not going the way we hope they will. But Jesus has made amends for our past, makes provision for our present and will make a way for our future until we have been fully delivered from every foe, fault and fear. We have been set free… from shame, regret, joylessness, emptiness, addictions, vanity, futility, fear, pride, lust, idols, sin, and death. We are freed by Jesus and in Jesus … free to say no to what sin offers and yes to something far better that He offers!
Jesus Doesn’t Make Us Pay
People. Will. Sin. Against. Us. It’s never a matter of will it happen, but when it will happen. It’s never a matter of will it hurt, but how much it will hurt. The question is: what will we do about it? The normal response is to burn with vengeance inside. The natural reaction is to bring on vengeance outside. We want to make people pay. But Jesus modeled a different way of handling the wrongs of others. The way of love. The way of forgiveness. The way of kindness. The way of good. The way of grace. Jesus doesn’t make us pay for our sins; He made the payment Himself. We who have received grace should be the quickest to extend it.
The Best Is Always Yet To Come
For all who trust in Jesus, there is a glorious eternity ahead in which bad things will be eliminated, good things will be perfected, and the best things will be unveiled. We have an eternity with Him that… Never gets stale. Never gets boring. Never gets routine. Never gets unappealing. Never gets finished. There will always be more to discover and enjoy from the immeasurable riches of God’s grace towards us in Christ Jesus. Don’t live for this day; live for that day. Don’t be discouraged by this day; be encouraged by that day. Take hope in this every day: for those who are trusting in Jesus, the best is always yet to come.
Today Will Be No Different
What Jesus has done, is doing and will do out of His love for us is what makes us safe and secure. He atones. He rules. He provides. He sustains. He delivers. There is nothing that can stop Him from loving us like that. And there is nothing that can separate us from a love like that. Because Jesus loves you… He gave His life for you in the past, He’s walking with you in the present, and He’s coming back for you in the future. Christian, take heart today, for though your life is not without threats and troubles, your life is safe and secure in the love of Jesus. He has loved you every day of your life. Today will not be any different.
Jesus Is Our Security
Jesus is our security… He laid down His life for us on the cross so we can be forgiven and freed from the only thing that can truly threaten us, our sin. He rose from the dead to defeat the final enemy that we could never safeguard against, our mortality. He sits in the position of power and authority to rule for good the one thing that we struggle to control, our lives. He prepares for us a place and an inheritance to be enjoyed forever by ensuring the one thing that we cannot, our eternity. He promises to provide all that we need until He brings us safely to the one good thing in our future that we long for most, our home with Him.
Real Security Is…
People go to great lengths to safeguard their money, health, jobs, computers, phones, homes, families, and minds against dangers that threaten their well-being. They look for security in a variety of places like their bank account balances, home alarm systems and workplace seniority. But all of the security measures people take have one thing in common: they can fail at any time, which means they don’t really offer security at all. Real security is having something which guarantees a good future for you that can never be lost by you or taken from you. That’s the kind of security that is only found in the love of Jesus.
Fully Known, Fully Loved Part 3
God loves us just as we are, but He loves us enough not to leave us as we are. Instead, He stays with us to transform us from the inside out into people who both hide less and less and have less and less to hide. The One who matters the most, knows us most, and loves us most. Secure in His love for us, we are moved to love Him back and extend His love to others, knowing that when the all-seeing God of the universe looks upon us in Christ, though He sees everything about us, what He sees most is a beloved son or daughter.
Fully Known, Fully Loved Part 2
It’s a good thing that Jesus knows every micro-detail about you because you don’t ever have to wonder if He loves the real you or just the sanitized-for-public version of you that others see. He doesn’t love you more on “good” days when you do all the things He wants you to do, and love you less on the “bad” days when you stray and disobey; He loves you all days and always because you are treasured by Him. To be sure, He doesn’t love our sins. In fact, He hates them. But that didn’t drive Jesus away from us; that drove Him to the cross for us, so we might be forgiven for, and freed from, our sins and welcomed into the family of God.
