God’s promise for Week Two:
“Be bold and strong! Banish fear and doubt! For remember, the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Eight
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5)
Common sense: How many of you have some choices to make right now? Let’s take a moment to think about on what we base our decisions. Often we are told to use our “common sense” as our guide when faced with some major decisions. That advice often agrees with our human way of thinking, yet in our spirit we know that something doesn’t line up. Think about the followers of Jesus in the first century. Had they used their common sense, how many of them would have left job, family, friends, to live the life to which Jesus was calling them? And what about missionaries today? If they had used their common sense, would they have left home, safety and financial security to bring the love of Jesus to the poor and needy of the world? When does our “own understanding” tell us to swallow our pride and try to reconcile with that family member who we know will never be the first to apologize? When does our common sense prompt us to give of our money, like the widow who gave “all she had to live on" (Mark 12:43)? In the midst of a painful marriage, will our common sense urge us to hold on? The answer to these questions make it clear that the common sense of the world is almost never in alignment with the Word of God. Some of you are facing major decisions right now. The voice of our common sense clamors to be heard: “But what about my financial needs? If I leave my security, what will happen to me?" “I’m right and she’s wrong. Why should I apologize?" “I’ve had it with this marriage! He’s never going to change!" Our “voice of reason" often drowns out the still, small voice of God. Maybe it’s time we stopped listening to common sense and instead begin to “acknowledge God” in our decision-making. So about those decisions you’re facing right now, to which voice will you listen? Let’s determine together we will listen for the quiet yet persistent voice of God in the Bible and know that He will—without a doubt do what He promises. He will make your path straight and He will be right by your side as you walk down it.
Prayer:
Lord, help me to listen to Your voice even when it contradicts the voice of my common sense. Amen.
Day Nine
“If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself." Timothy 2:13
Self-doubt: The following is the true account told by a person who attempted to help a young girl who was killed when a tree fell on her.
In my life, I have to admit that my biggest barrier to faith has been, and continues to be, self-doubt. I trust that God is good and that His ways are perfect and that He loves me, yet when I pray, I am plagued with the thought that even though this is all true, what if my failings somehow hamper God’s work in my life and cancel out his power? Some of you may remember hearing about the two young girls who were killed by a falling tree while hiking near Banff last June. Some of you may also know that my family was on the trail that day and helped the father attempt to resuscitate his five year old daughter. Through this tragic, painful experience, God has taught me so many things. That day, I laid my hands on that little girl and I prayed that God would spare her life. I wanted so badly for her to live and run into the arms of her desperate parents. However, all the while I was praying, I knew she was not going to live. It has plagued me deep in my heart since that day that maybe if I had not had those doubts, she would have risen up right then and there. Was it my weakness and lack of faith that hindered that miracle? When I expressed this plaguing thought to a pastor friend, he pointed me to Romans 8:26: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with his will." As I prayed on that tragic day last June, the Holy Spirit took my words and turned them into “groans that words cannot express" and I know that God was there that day. Perhaps one day I will know that my prayers were answered, not in the way that I, in my limited knowledge, wanted, but in the way that our infinite, all-knowing God willed. Perhaps on this earth I will never know. Either way, I know now that God is bigger than my weaknesses and that He can take my feeble attempts and turn them into something beautiful that accomplishes His purposes on earth. So for every one who doubts, for everyone who has prayed and not seen them answered, know this: God hears. He hears and He answers. Romans 8:26 was a life preserver thrown to me as I floundered in the stormy sea of self-doubt, and I’m going to cling to it as a drowning man. I’m going to hold tight to the promises of God. When our reason fails, when our arms are weak and our knees are trembling, let us KNOW that God’s promises are true. When we don’t know what to pray for, let us pray anyway, the best we know how—because it’s not about us and our failings—it’s about our God who NEVER fails.
Prayer:
Lord, help me to know that You are faithful.
Day Ten
“Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)
Fear: When fear, which shows itself so often in the form of worry, is the center of our life, Jesus isn’t. This is a very valuable measuring stick for evaluating our walk with God. When we spend more time in a day wondering how we’re going to pay our bills this month, worrying about our children, or distressing about relationships, we need to spend more time with the Lord. Let’s look for a moment at the Parable of the Sower (read Mark 3:1-20). Clearly, Jesus lays out three categories of people. Today, let’s focus on the third category: “Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word, but the worries of this life…come in, making it unfruitful" (Mark 3:18). The Message puts it this way: “The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it.” We like to belong in the fourth, ‘good soil’ category, but if we’re honest, all too often we’re wandering around in the weeds and thorns of worry. To those reading this today who know they are too fearful, make a choice. When the fear comes, in one of the hundred ways it comes each day, say today’s verse, Isaiah 41:10. In these beautiful words, God not only tells us not to fear, but he gives us the reasons WHY we do not have to fear. “Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God." He goes on to give us such a wonderful promise: “Certainly, without doubt, indisputably, I will help you, definitely, for sure, unquestionably, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand" (Is 41:10, emphasis and synonyms added). We don’t have to fear. God is our God. If we believe He is who He says he is, and that his word is true, then we must choose not to fear. The worry will come—it always does, but when it does, we don’t have to let it cripple us. Instead, let’s remind ourselves that God promises to take care of us and refuse to let the “cares of this world” stand between us and total trust in our God.
Prayer:
Please God, help me to be good soil for your words to fall onto. Help me not to let the cares of this world become weeds that choke out your voice. Amen.
Day Eleven
“Jesus said: “No procrastination! No backward looks. You can’t put off God’s kingdom till tomorrow. Seize the day!" (Luke 9:62)
Spiritual laziness: Why is it that we can find time for everything but reading the Bible? If we believe that “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Matt 4:4), how many of us are starving to death? How many of us are really ‘alive’ right now when, though our stomachs are full, we are spiritually wasting away? Spiritual laziness is a huge barrier to faith, not because we don’t believe what God promises in His Word, but because we simply don’t know what He says because we don’t read it faithfully. We so often wonder why God feels distant, why we feel stressed out, why we’re afraid, when the answer is almost always the same: We’re not spending time in God’s Word every day. It is the key to faith, yet it is the most neglected habit in life. God’s Word is our manual for the Christian life, yet most of us are blindly stumbling through it because we are not familiar with what that manual says. If “faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of Christ" (Rom 10:17 NASB), it is no wonder that so many of us struggle with weak faith. We can talk all day about faith, but if we don’t master this one simple concept, we will remain in our doubts, being tossed around by the winds of life. Believers must become more disciplined in this area. What about you? Let’s agree together today that we will make it the number one priority to read God’s word and talk to Him about it every day. Let’s gently but firmly hold each other accountable. Let our first question, when listening to each other’s struggles, be: “Are you spending time with God every day?"
And let’s pray together that as we take this step. God will come through with his power and help us in our weakness.
Prayer:
Lord, I am weak in this area of daily spending time with you. Strengthen me. Amen.
Day Twelve
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want in my name and it will be given you. This is my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." (John 15:7)
Lack of Persistence: The following was written by a person who was trying to reach out and help someone find the Savior, Jesus.
Amanda (name has been changed) has a desperate need for God—I could see it all over her face the first time I spoke with her. God brought her into my life and I just knew He was reaching out his hand to heal the tremendous pain in her. Many of you have your own “Amandas"—sometimes we considered them part of our “hopeless case” list. I have been praying for and talking to my Amanda for close to two years and last spring she finally came to church and accepted Jesus into her life. Sound like a fairy tale ending? Not really. That was the last time she came to church, and today she is making the same old choices that caused her such pain in the first place. Well, I hate to admit it, but I gave up on her. I threw up my hands and said to myself: ‘Well, I can lead them to water but I can’t make them drink!" and went on my merry way. And then came that still, small voice that so often pierces my heart: “Did I give up on you when you were lost in your sin?" Ouch. I began thinking about the story that Jesus told of the lost sheep. Like it or not, each one of us is a shepherd and we are responsible for the sheep that God brings into our flock. Amanda was one of my sheep—she was lost in the wilderness and I was saying, oh well, it’s true she may die out there, but I’ve done all I can. The shepherd in the story left his other sheep—the responsive, encouraging, obedient ones--and he searched all night in the cold dangerous wilderness until he found that one who was lost. We need to take our example of persistence from Jesus. He never gives up on us, so how can we give up on others? He never loses his patience with us, so how can we lose our patience with those who are stumbling in the darkness? How will our “Amandas" see Christ’s patient, persistent love in us if we give up on them? When we feel discouraged about our hopeless cases, let’s remember that if we spend time learning about (through reading the Bible) and listening to (through prayer) the voice of God, and then we obey that voice, we can ask whatever we want in his name and it will be given to us. Let’s spend some time today asking God that all of our “Amandas" will hear God knocking on the door of their hearts, and believe that it is not God’s wish “for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Pet 3:9). I know that God wants me, instead of giving up, to pray for Amanda, encourage her, and be there for her when the storm of her pain rages around her once again. I think He wants us all to pick up our list of “hopeless cases,” find our “Amandas" and be the faithful shepherd that God has called us to be, “for the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." (Luke 19:10)
Prayer:
Lord, help me to remember that you never give up on me. Help me to deeply care for the ‘lost sheep’ as much as you do.
Day Thirteen
Psalm 31:23 Love the Lord, all his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full. 24 Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
King David endured much persecution at the hands of evil people. People who intended him harm. People who did not have “holy regard” for the Lord pursued David with the goal of fulfilling plots to slander and destroy him. All of David’s problems caused him to “cry out” to God. Today, let’s read Psalm 31 and ask God to keep us keenly trusting our Lord.
Psalm 31:1 In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness. 2 Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me. 3 Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me. 4 Free me from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge. 5 Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth. 6 I hate those who cling to worthless idols; I trust in the Lord. 7 I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. 8 You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. 9 Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. 10 My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. 11 Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors; I am a dread to my friends-- those who see me on the street flee from me. 12 I am forgotten by them as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery. 13 For I hear the slander of many; there is terror on every side; they conspire against me and plot to take my life. 14 But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, "You are my God." 15 My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me. 16 Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love. 17 Let me not be put to shame, O Lord, for I have cried out to you; but let the wicked be put to shame and lie silent in the grave. 18 Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous. 19 How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you. 20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; in your dwelling you keep them safe from accusing tongues. 21 Praise be to the Lord, for he showed his wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city. 22 In my alarm I said, "I am cut off from your sight!" Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help. 23 Love the Lord, all his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full. 24 Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
Pray: Lord, give me a strong heart to always hope in your assured promises.
Day Fourteen
“For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8)
Jack Graham is pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Texas. He recently stated:
“Life is a series of choices.”
Every day, you and I choose whether or not to pray, we choose to read God’s Word or not, we choose how much energy we’ll devote to work, how we deal with coworkers, how we spend our money, how we will react to our spouse and our children, how we will deal with temptations. Every day is full of choices!
And these choices ultimately define who we are and what our future looks like. In fact, someone once said that character is the sum total of the choices we make in life.
So what about you? What do your choices say about you? Are you making good choices? But more than that, what informs the choices you make? The world around you? Or the Word of God?
I know I’ve said this before, but it’s vital “that you saturate your life with the living Word of God.” Because it will give you the strength you need for today and it will guide you as you make choices, choices that will ultimately determine the quality of your character and your life.
Prayer: Lord, bless me with loving You and with having my choices be determined by Your Word.
