Category Archives: Faith

Wait…

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14Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”  Psalm 27:14 (KJV)

Be of good courage, what does that mean to you? To me it means have faith, soldiers going into battle must have faith in their commander. We should have faith in our commander, the Almighty. We must also wait on Him, to wait on Him takes a great amount of faith. But as the psalmist says, “…He shall strengthn thine heart…”. So, if we have enough faith to wait on the Lord, then He will give us that strength we need to fight the good fight. All we have to do is wait.

Implusive?

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20“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,” Jude 1:20 (KJV)

There was nothing of the nature of impulsive or thoughtless action about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into a panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the lines of our own nature, not along the lines of God’s nature. Impulsiveness is a trait of the natural life, and our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how the Spirit of God gives a sense of restraint to impulsiveness, suddenly bringing us a feeling of self-conscious foolishness, which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulsiveness is all right in a child, but is disastrous in a man or woman—an impulsive adult is always a spoiled person. Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline.

Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he “followed Him at a distance” on dry land (Mark 14:54). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises—human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God—but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people—and this is not learned in five minutes.-Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest”

Don’t be impulsive, sounds easy enough right? Not so much. Sometimes we allow our human-ness to impede the development of our “disciple-hood”. Think about it, actions and words, when taken impulsively, can cause a lot of hurt to those around us.  That’s why it’s so important to think and pray about what we do and what we say before we do it or say it. We must allow God into those actions and words for them to be truly used for His glory. As Mr. Chambers mentioned, we must allow Him into our ordinary everyday lives.  Because isn’t that what our lives end up being, a lifetime of everyday? Why not put God into everyday, so in the end you’ll have a lifetime that was spent giving every minute, hour, day and year to the Lord. How wonderful would that be?

When?

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Patience

By Ruth Harms Calkin

Lord, as I read Your Word today

I underlined these words:

“Don’t be impatient for the Lord to act.

Keep traveling steadily along His pathway

And in due season He will honor you with every blessing.”

I know I need more patience Lord.

But I simply cannot create it.

I plead with You to do it for me.

And, Lord could You hurry a little?

“22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

Patience is such a fleeting thing for people today, myself included, one moment I have it and the next minute it’s gone. Or maybe I never had it in the first place. Like Ruth mentioned, patience is not something that can be created by us. It’s a gift from God. In our culture today, everything can be bought or found instantly. But when it comes to the fruits of the spirit mentioned in Galatians, we can’t be find those up for auction on Ebay. Those fruits are things that we must wait for God to bless us with as we walk along the path that He has set before us.  It does us no good to cross our arms and tap our toe, and ask God when? How? Are you listening? Because we cannot know the when or the how only the Lord knows our “due season”.  The only thing we can do is wait, listen, and keep walking.

Being Busy

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Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world” —John 18:36

The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation . . . . For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person’s life.

We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord’s life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.

It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College— its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God’s redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come. But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.

I must admit, this entry from Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) found in My Utmost for His Highest really humbled me. So often, I find myself searching for things to do, and end up rushing from here and there to do those things that really aren’t all that important. It’s this overactivity that takes me away from being fully immersed in the Lord. We as Christians need to set aside time to just be with God, to listen to His still small voice. And to allow ourselves time to soak in God. He is there at all times why not enjoy His company instead of being so busy “being busy” we forget that He is there?

Today

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It is true, the Lord is with His children  every minute of every day, but it makes such a difference to spend that time in His presence. To drown out all the noise and listen to His still small voice. That is why I try to set aside that all important time with Him. It’s like a standing appointment with God, a time for me to “dish” with my Heavenly Father.

They say you should spend quiet time with Him first thing in the morning so that your day is started off on the right foot, in God’s presence. But that’s not feasible for me and my morning un-alertedness. Yes, I pray  as soon as I wake-up, or after I realize how late I am for work. But I don’t take the time to sit quietly and soak in His presence.  So, I try to set aside sometime in the evenings before I go to bed, and at least one point during the day to stop and just be with my Lord.

To keep myself accountable for this time with God, and to share the blessings found in His word, I would like to share what God has laid upon my heart for that day. It may be an entry from my current devotional, or it may be scripture that has really spoken to me  that day.

Don’t worry, this blog will still remain a happy place, where I can share my home improvement fumbles. But I find it so important to include the Lord in everything in my life.  Even if that means including Him in this silly little blog.

So to start us off with this new endevour, I’d like to share with you a verse that I use in my life daily, if not hourly and minutely and secondly (?). It is found in Matthew 6:34

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

This is something that I must remind myself of everyday. So often, I get lost in worry, and I end up in a vicious cycle of internal questions: What will I wear tomorrow? Will I get to work on time? Will I not hear my alarm and oversleep again? Will I have time to scrub the shower today? These questions, although important to me today, will they matter a year from now, or even 5 or 10 years from now? Probably not. But what will matter is how I used today, because today is really all we have. Tomorrow is not promised, yesterday has passed, but today is what God has given us.  We must use today as it was intended, as a testament to His love. As a way to show others who Jesus is, so that they might know that joy and peace. So, to be worried about the little things does not show the perfect peace that resides in my heart. Instead, I want to use my todays to serve and glorify the Almighty. How do you want to use your todays?