Don’t Throw Away Your Confidence

July 3, 2014 by journeyintolight

I have been through several health challenges in the last nine months. Yet, I am nearly recovered from all of them. God is good and a healer of all my ailments.

Nevertheless, I was surprised to receive another health challenge on Friday.

As a precaution because of my family history, I had a sonogram done to detect any abdominal aneurism. And wouldn’t you know it, I did have one! This can be life-threatening if it dissects- which it could at any time. And one did nine months ago in my heart area that nearly killed me. What a bummer! When will these challenges cease?

Fortunately, through the miracles of modern medicine there is hope that minor surgery can correct the problem-yet this remains to be determined.

As a result, this week I was tempted to throw away my confidence- a confidence that depends on God being good, loving me, and in complete control of my circumstances. How could such a God allow me to have challenge after challenge? I was fighting to maintain my faith in God.

Why shouldn’t I throw away my confidence in God? Has he acted trustworthy towards me?

Then, God brought these verses to mind,

“Do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (Hebrews 10:35-36).

God does not want me to throw away my confidence in him. He wants to use this tough time to build endurance and perseverance in me (James 1:1-2).

For he tells us that perseverance is fundamental to our ability to grow in godliness. “Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness” (2 Peter 1:5-6).

He wants us to grow in our confidence that he is good, loves us and will work all our circumstances out for our good no matter how bleak things look.

But it’s a battle.

Peter threw away his confidence in Jesus to help him to walk on water and was chided for not depending more on Jesus (Matthew 14:29-31).

 However, the same Peter also showed his confidence in following Jesus by saying, “To whom shall we go, you have words of eternal life?” (John 6:68) when few followed Jesus.

Here are some thoughts about how to win the battle for confidence.

We have a supernatural enemy in Satan who often suggests ideas that question God’s goodness and power. We need to be alert for these ideas and rely on God’s help to identify and extinguish Satan’s flaming arrows (Ephesians 6:16).

No one promised us a rose garden. The Christian life is not easy if we aren’t going to throw away our confidence in God. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

Finally, we need to use our fears and sadness to discover what we are relying on, false hopes or God’s truth. Are we relying on perfect circumstances, or God’s purposes always working for our good in our circumstances?

If we are relying on false hopes, we need to ask God to help us to put off their control of us. If we are relying on God’s truth, we need to ask him to strengthen us to grow in our confidence in him and to thank him for his work in us (Ephesians 4:22-24).

 

 

Posted in Faith | 3 Comments »

Are You Helpless?

June 25, 2014 by journeyintolight

My wife is a very sweet person. She is easy to love. Yet, for a long time I often found my self-centeredness blocking me from making her feel loved. So, I would redouble my efforts to love her better. But alas, she would tell me time after time that this or that did not make her feel loved.

I finally concluded that I was not going to make her feel loved without some outside help. I felt helpless!

Also, for all my life I have relied on my body as being indestructible. I could rely on it supporting me in whatever I did. But nine months ago it began to wobble on me. After four hospital stays in the last nine months I have finally concluded that my body is not indestructible. Where do I go for physical security? I feel helpless!

What It Means to be Helpless

It means that we know deeply that we can’t do what we need to do without God’s help.

A few years ago I finally realized that I couldn’t help people grow spiritually without God working, no matter how skilled and knowledgeable I became.

Why Knowing Our Helplessness Is Good

It is good to know our helplessness because we will often not rely on God to help us unless we know deeply that we can’t do it. If there is even the slightest chance we can avoid dependency on God, our independent spirit will tend to go it alone.

And if this is what we do often, we are wasting our lives- for only that which is done in obedience to God’s will, in his power (as a result of knowing our helplessness) and for his purposes will be rewarded in heaven (I Corinthians 3:10-15).

I am currently mentoring a small group of medical students. I told them this week how hard it will be down the road for them to accept their helplessness so that they may receive God’s supernatural power.

They will have to deal with the temptations that will come from being gifted intellectually, the respect and approval they will get from society, and their material status. They will be sorely tempted to be motivated to forgo the humbling process of accepting their helplessness and God’s help and instead rely on their resources to earn worth, approval, and security.

But it doesn’t have to be that way for them, or for the rest of us.

How We Can Live in the Reality of Our Helplessness

We live in the reality of our helplessness by depending on the importance of admitting our helplessness, so the door to receiving God’s Almighty strength is opened.

This happens as we ask and depend on God changing us so that we can accept our helplessness and rely on his presence and strength.

We can learn like Paul did you to rejoice in our helplessness.

“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in [helplessness].’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my [helplessness], so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with [helplessness], with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am [helpless] then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-11).

So, rather than running away from the truth of our helplessness, we need to embrace it. We need to face the reality that to live for God we need to become content with our helplessness.

But accepting our helplessness is so painful. It’s much easier to live in the illusion of self-sufficiency that the world tries to get us to buy into. But the truth is that we are helpless to live the wonderful life that God has designed for us to live (Ephesians 2:10).

The verse that helps me the most to accept my helplessness is Jesus’ reminder in John 15:5 that “apart from Me you can do nothing of [eternal benefit].”

 

 

Posted in God's Provision | Leave a Comment »

When God Takes Good Things Away

June 14, 2014 by journeyintolight

 After being hospitalized four times in the last eight months, my confidence in my indestructible body has taken a beating. I no longer think that serious physical problems are what happen to other people. My reality has expanded to include an awareness that my body will not last forever.

When I asked the Lord, “Will these things happen to me again?” his response was “No, unless I have a good reason to allow them to happen again.” In other words, “Trust me for your physical security, not your ‘indestructible’ body.”

A few days ago I was talking to a friend about why he hasn’t found a career job after looking hard for four years. “Why has God taken away a career job from me?” was the question of his heart. I suggested that maybe God had a new vision for his life, one that did not include a career job as he has had in the past.

But aren’t our health and career jobs good things? Isn’t God supposed to be good? Why does a good God take good things away from us?

May I suggest that God takes good things away from us so that we can receive better things.

At the right time, he will take away from us any blessings that we cling to instead of him. “ Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:2). What does that mean?” you may ask.

Respected theologian and preacher John Calvin says, “Our hearts are an idol factory.” God wants to take away the false things we cling to give us a sense of security and importance.

Good health and career jobs can be idols to us if we depend on them rather than God to make us feel safe and important. We depend on God by depending on his promises like, “Do not fear, I am with you” (Isaiah 41:10); “You are precious” (Isaiah 43:4).

Good health and career jobs are broken cisterns that will not hold up to the attacks of life in providing us with a deep sense of safety and worth (Jeremiah 2:13).

Instead, God says to us, “Come to the waters, and you who have no money come, buy and eat, Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isaiah 55:1).

However, we would prefer to rely on always having good health and a career job that makes us feel important and safe. But life teaches us that we can’t always rely on these things. Bad things do happen.

God asks us, “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance” (Isaiah 55:2).

We are wasting our life and living in a false reality when we rely on good health and jobs to give us the strength and importance that God has already promised that he has given us.

He says to us, “I am your strength and shield” (Psalm 27:8, paraphrased); “I see all your ways, and number all your steps because you are important to Me” (Job 31:4, paraphrased).

So, God takes away good things, in order to give us better things. We will not depend on him unless we quit depending on these good things so much.

Ask God today to show you any good thing that you are depending on too much instead of God to meet the needs behind the good thing. Ask him to help you to put off this false dependency and put on depending on him and his promises to meet your needs in this area (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Posted in False Gods | 2 Comments »

Can We Trust Our Circumstances?

June 4, 2014 by journeyintolight

I was looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend. So many happy memories are tied into this holiday for me. Probably the biggest blessing is that it means the beginning of summer is here!

So I planned to have a relaxing weekend with friends and watching old war movies in honor of the veterans who have given their lives to preserve our wonderful way of life.

But God had different plans for me. I spent much of the weekend in the hospital. Last Friday I was admitted to the hospital with stroke-like symptoms. However, the tests showed no evidence of a stroke, so they called it a TIA (temporary stroke). I was released on Saturday.

Then on Sunday, I had to be taken by ambulance from the church service to the emergency room of a local hospital because I nearly fainted. This time it was due to dehydration as a result of being prescribed a double dose of blood pressure medicine.

So, my plans were blown apart. Little happened that weekend that I had planned.

So, what is God trying to teach us through my example?

One thing is that we do not control our circumstances. He does. Whatever we think our future will be, it will only be if God determines it will be. It will not be based on random luck or probabilities.

 “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that”’ (James 4:14-15).

One of my first struggles after the weekend was to get some assurances that these circumstances will never happen again. God’s response to me was this: “The circumstances will never happen again – unless I cause them for my good purposes.”

His response does give me some comfort. But my deep desire is to be assured that I will never have to go through these scary circumstances again.

I then recalled how I had had tuberculosis 32 years ago and was cured. I asked the doctor then what assurances do I have that this will never happen again. I never received that assurance.

But tuberculosis never did return.

So, another thing God wants to teach us is that even though we do not control our circumstances, we do not need to be afraid because he is good. “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
 all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6).

But we will be sorely tempted to retreat into good circumstances to feel safe. But God warns us that we will not find our peace there.

“Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows (that rob you of your peace). But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

So, how do we live with peace knowing that we live in a dangerous world that is out of our control?

God says to us, “Do not fear, I am with you” (Isaiah 41:10).

Is that all you have to say God? Our reason not to be afraid is simply that you are with us?

But he also promises us that because he is with us, “I will strengthen you,

“Surely I will help you,

“Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

He promises us in Psalm 46 that he is not just a spectator of our troubles but a very present help in enabling us to get through them in a godly way.

No, we can’t be assured that nothing threatening will happen to us. Yet, we can be assured that many of the dangers we fear, will never happen to us because he is good. But if they do, God will empower us to meet the challenges with his strength and grace (Deuteronomy 33:25b).

Posted in Circumstances | Leave a Comment »

Hang in There!

May 16, 2014 by journeyintolight

I never dreamed it would take so long. I never anticipated many of the problems that I would face when I started to write a book four years ago. It definitely was a test of whether or not I would endure.

What started out as an attempt to pass on to my small group important ideas and practices for spiritual growth that I learned in seminary, gradually grew into an effort to publish a book.

I had to overcome many obstacles within me like, “I can’t do this”, “What happens if I fail?” and “who needs help with editing?”

During those four years I was to spend $24,000 of my own hard earned money and spend thousands of hours writing and rewriting the book.

During that time I was told to “give up and put the book in a drawer and forget about it.” The self-publishing company that was helping me publish the book went out of business taking $6,000 of my hard earned money and not delivering any service for it.

Seven months ago I had emergency heart surgery and almost died.

Yet, through it all I sensed that God had a message he wanted to get to his church through the book. I persevered because I thought I was doing work with God in helping his children to grow in their relationship with him.

And the book was published on Amazon.com a few days ago!

However, the need to persevere continues for I have things to do to market the book. When will it ever end?

Yet, God reminded me a few days ago that it is not in vain. “But what happens if you do not use the book in people’s lives?” I said to him. “It’s not in vain,” he said back (1 Corinthians 15:58).

I recalled something that he taught me in the last few years that nothing is in vain if done in obedience, in dependence and for his purposes.

So, I am free to focus on my tasks and leave the lion-share of the work to him to market the book, just as I did in working with him in writing the book.

So, what do you need to persevere in?

One definition of perseverance is to persist in an activity in spite of difficulties and discouragement.

The truth is that we will seldom succeed right away. God tells us “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (Hebrews 10:36).

He also says to us we will “bear fruit with perseverance” (Luke 8:15). One fruit is becoming a more mature Christian, which includes psychologically and spiritually (James 1:4).

If God has led us into an activity, we are to keep at it until he clearly leads us to quit. He commands us to hang in there! (Hebrews 12:1).

How do we persevere? How do we hang in there? Grind our teeth and gut it out?

No!

We ask God to help change our attitude about hard things. Instead of groaning and complaining, we view difficulties as opportunities to grow in our dependence on God (James 1:2-3)

We can also choose obedience to God over success and comfort as our goal in life.

Finally, we can also ask God to help us experience his deep love for us and his goodness. Then we can rely on his promises like “You will see My goodness in the land of the living (paraphrase of Psalm 27:13), and “Surely My goodness and love will follow you all the days of your life and you will live with Me forever in heaven” (paraphrase of Psalm 23:6).

Our reliance on these promises can help us to persevere through the pain.

 

Posted in Perseverance | 1 Comment »

People Who Need People

April 26, 2014 by journeyintolight

I was drained. I felt emotionally tired as I approached Tuesday night’s bible study that I lead. I felt about as spiritual as a brick.

I told the Lord that I needed his strength and his presence to lead the discussion.

And the night turned out great! I was encouraged by the fellowship. I felt more energy and inner strength after the discussion than before. I felt that God had used the time to calm my inner turmoil. How it worked, I don’t know. Yet, God had used the love and encouragement of the group to strengthen me.

Thursday night I had another small group that I needed to facilitate. Again, I was the leader. Again, I reached out to God for strength. And again the time went well. The group had become like family to me over the four years that we have met.

They rejoiced over the book that I had just written that they had helped me write. They gave many ideas for how to market the book, which I felt largely clueless in how to do.

We all have realized how rare and valuable a group of people who know us at a heart level and love us anyway can be.

I have been in small groups throughout my 43 years as a Christian. It is how I do the Christian life. I view small groups as transformational communities in which we help each other to grow in the faith.

But many of us tend to be Lone Rangers. We think that God and we are enough. We have not realized the necessity of being involved in a small group.

Yet, God has made us to need each other. He likens the church to a body – and we are just one body part. How silly it is to think that we can live a joyful and powerful life by just being a finger!

Through the years, I have benefited from people in my groups who could be counted on to teach me deeper truths from Scripture. Others would often show me love and compassion. And still others would be exhorters, challenging me to stretch and grow.

But we have to be connected where we can benefit from the unique way that God uses each of us to help one another. We can’t just be focused on studying the Word at the expense of not applying the Word to encourage and build up each other as the Spirit in us works. We can miss the full potential of small groups being places where people’s lives are changed in the midst of a loving community

Often we do not live the truths that we know. We know God loves us, yet we fear the future that he controls, the failure that he promises to work for our good, and the rejection of others in the face of his constant acceptance. In other words, we do not believe deeply that he loves us!

But in a small group, as we reveal who we really are in the company of spirit-filled people, we experience a taste of God’s love that can help us to accept the truth that because of God’s love we have a secure future, failure is no big deal, and the rejection of others stings but does not define us.

May our small group fellowship be for us the caring community that enables us to experience God’s love and makes us more like him.

God wants us to show his love, his humility, his forbearance, his forgiveness, his exhortation, and his encouragement to each other. This becomes a powerful witness to the world, as it has been throughout the history of the church. “See how they love each other!”

 

Posted in Fellowship | 2 Comments »

Wait!

April 18, 2014 by journeyintolight

“I am outraged! I am broken-hearted! Not again?” I said to God a few days ago.

I was at a Christian Writers Conference and God had just said to revise my book again. “I am sick and tired of rewriting this book! This must be the hundredth time you have led me to rewrite it.

“You know that “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12), so either tell me “Go” or change my hope so I can wait in peace.”

You would think that four years was long enough to write a book, but God’s direction was a clear “Wait!”

As I reflected on this unwanted guidance, I recalled how waiting on God for a wife really paid off for me. I believe I got a much better wife than I would have if I had not waited on God’s “Go.”

So, with much sadness and grief, mixed with his peace, I approach rewriting the book again.

Waiting on God means to lose control. We recognize we need God’s guidance and help. We are not the Master of our Destiny and the Captain of our Soul. He is.

Waiting on God means an interactive, intimate relationship in which we let him into our daily lives. We wait because he knows best.

We wait on God by not “jumping the gun.” It feels good when we can make things happen. But are the things that we make happen God’s good works or are they our futile attempts in serve God in our own strength (1 Corinthians 3:10-15)?

We wait even though it hurts, anticipating a better result than charging ahead. That could mean waiting for a spouse, a better job, or publishing a book.

We learn to wait in peace as we rely on the truth that obedience and trust in God is what life is about. And he likes to do this a step at a time. “Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them” (Deuteronomy 5:29).

Let us wait on God until we hear his “Go.” May we be like David who waited patiently for God to fulfill his promise to make him king. May we wait until He brings us “up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He sets [our] feet upon a rock making [our] footsteps firm” (Psalm 40:2-3, brackets added).

 

Posted in God's Provision | 1 Comment »

You Are Important!

April 5, 2014 by journeyintolight

I have always wanted to be important. For the most part, I haven’t regarded myself as that important because there were usually enough others that could outperform in an area that I was using to measure my worth.

If it wasn’t being too short, it was not being outgoing enough. If it wasn’t amassing as much power as someone else, it was not being as smart as some brain in the class.

There always seemed to be a reason to hinder my sense of being important.

I am sure that you struggle with being important too. Maybe we are not important?

Yet, God says, “[I] have made [you] a little lower than [Me], and have crowned [you] with glory and majesty” (Psalm 8:4-5, brackets added).

What? I am important? Based on what?

Based on how God sees us. Not based on being the brightest bulb in the package. Not based on being the best looking. And not based on being the wealthiest person in the graduating class.

What makes us important for all time is that that we are important to God. These are some things he says to us about how important we are to him:

  • “You are precious” (Isaiah 43:4)
  • “Let us make [you] like us, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26, brackets added)
  • “[I] see [your] ways and number all [your] steps” (Job 31:4, brackets added))
  • “You did not choose Me, but I chose you” (John 15:16)
  • “See how great a love [i have] bestowed upon you that you should be called [My child] (1 John 3:1, brackets added)
  • Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that [I live] in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16, brackets added)
  • “He who touches you, touches the apple of [My] eye” (Zechariah 2:8, brackets added)
  • “The very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Luke 12:7)

So, if we are important to God, what difference does it make?

It makes a big difference! We can quit striving to be important and learn to rest in being as important as we will ever be.

You may say, “This is sheer nonsense. Surely, my getting promoted, having a great family, and being well-known and respected makes me more important.”

No it doesn’t.

Not in God’s eyes it doesn’t. And he is the One who determines how important we are, not what you and others think. “So we have stopped evaluating others [and our self] from a human point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16, NLT, brackets added).

Because we are important, another difference is that “we have bold and confident access” (Ephesians 3:12) to God at anytime. We were important enough that Jesus died on the cross to make this access a reality.

A third difference being important has is that God wants to make us like himself and to use us to work alongside him in changing the world. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

So let’s accept the fact that we are important! And that will never change. Thank God for his gift of importance!

 

 

Posted in Worth | Leave a Comment »

Are You Desperate Enough?

March 27, 2014 by journeyintolight

I was desperate. I wanted relief from my daily neck pain that I had endured for three years.

I had tried everything that I knew of to find relief. I went to doctors, chiropractors, an acupuncturist, a muscle-building trainer, and a physical therapist. Nothing helped. My pain continued.

In my desperation, I turned to the Internet and began looking under the topic of neck pain. My research indicated that a doctor had written a book that claimed to possibly explain why I had neck pain and how to make it stop.

As I read the book, I thought that what he said made some sense, but it sounded weird. But I was desperate enough and willing to give most anything a try.

So, I tried his approach-and it worked! Within three months the pain went away. That was six years ago. The pain has never returned, except for brief stretches when I applied the teachings of the book and escaped the pain once again.

If I had not been so desperate, I would have been satisfied to go to a chiropractor or doctor the rest of my life and gut my way through life getting temporary relief at best. But I was desperate enough to try something new. Something that many others and I would think was weird. But it worked and I am pain-free today!

And so it is with our relationship with God. He longs to be longed for. But only desperate souls will long for him. Why?

Mainly because we have found false ways to get our needs met without longing for him. However, these false ways never satisfy. “And the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19)

We are not desperate enough. We become complacent choosing to become friends with the world rather than risk relying on God to come through for us (James 4:4).

Look at Israel. When they were desperate, they prayed with all their hearts to God. And he delivered them from their miserable situations.

But when they grew complacent and returned to being friends with the world their pain returned. However, when they became desperate enough to risk trusting God again and prayed earnestly, God delivered them. This cycle was repeated over and over again (Judges 6-21).

So, how do we become desperate enough?

One thing we can do is to pray earnestly that we would “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6). We can pray that we would not become complacent with our status quo but be desperate enough to seek a more abundant life that he promises us. “I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Not only can we pray to long for God, but also pray that we will make him our top priority in our actions- to learn how to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).

May we be desperate enough to trust him to help turn us away from “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16), so that we can embrace his joy, his peace, and his love.

Ask God today to help you become desperate enough in one area of your life to trust him to help you take the next step toward a deeper relationship with him.

Posted in Spiritual Growth | 6 Comments »

God Loves You- What Difference Does It Make?

March 21, 2014 by journeyintolight

Sadly, for many of us, the fact that God loves us makes little or no difference in our lives.

It made little difference in my life for a long time. I acted like I had to earn his love by achieving, doing good things, and being strong. But God loves me without achieving, doing good things, and being strong.

Paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, God says to us, his children, “I am patient with you, I am kind with you, I act in your best interest, I do not hold a grudge towards you, but celebrate your progress in the faith, and I expect you to succeed. I say these things to you because I love you.”

Relying more on God’s love for me has freed me to be who I really am, a dearly loved child of God.

I am freer to do things that are right for me, rather than what gives the most prestige. I am freer to do things for the right reasons, rather than trying to earn his love that I already have. And I can be more honest about my weaknesses, which do not diminish God’s love for me even a “smidgeon.”

What other differences can accepting God’s love us for us make in our lives?

Accepting that God loves us so much that He died on a cross for us will get us to heaven (John 3:16). What a difference that makes?

Relying on the fact that God loves us will require us to reject much of our prior training and how the world operates. What a difference that will make!

Training such as “There is no free lunch” and “God can’t love us unless we earn it”. “But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Yes, it is too good to be true, but it is true that God loves us just the way we are.

Another big difference in living in the reality of God’s love for us is losing many of our fears. Experiencing God’s love for us will drive out our fears and replace them with peace. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love” (1John 4:18).

Relying on God’s love for us will also empower us to love others. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We can’t love others like God does unless his love for us has made a difference in our lives.

May the fact that God loves you make a difference in your life. May you avoid the sad fate of “the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard” (Hebrews 4:2).

Ask God to help you to live in the reality of his love for you today. What is one difference you think that it will make?

Posted in God's Love | 5 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »