Monday Morning 4/30/2012

Is your love for God greater than your love for what people think about you?

Is your obedience to God greater than your common sense?

Do you care more about making disciples than you care about making a good first impression?

Acts Chapter 12 opens with King Herod Agrippa of Rome persecuting believers. He orders the death of John’s brother James and has Peter arrested. Just to make himself look good. People came together and prayed. Soemthing more than a miracle happened. Peter shows up, Herod dies, and the story cannot stay quiet. People saw the results of their work. Verse 24 says that many new believers were added. New disciples made to tell other disciples.

 
And just like Acts 12, the Holy Spirit shows up at the front door of the church, and some don’t want to believe what has happened.

Faith makes things happen.
Faith makes -
- Heaven real
- God Real
- Life really exciting.

But we can’t have it both ways.
If we are going to act in faith, we must believe something is going to happen. We must expect a miracle to happen.

But that’s not easy, is it?

Are you getting the picture yet?

We need Jesus to INCREASE OUR FAITH to act, to do something, to Go.
We really don’t have much faith do we?

We need God to help us.

Let’s face the real problem. Let’s be honest.  
We say we have “real” faith, but when it comes time to do something that involves God’s church, the faith is not there, right?

Sometimes we have more faith:
- In our car starting than we have in God answering our prayer.
- In our best friend helping us out than we do in Jesus making the difference for us.
- In getting a weekly paycheck to pay our bills than we do in bringing offerings to God.
- In others telling us what’s best for us than we do in the God that created us and gives us our every breath.

This is not criticism. This is the way we are programmed to act.

We need GOD to INCREASE OUR FAITH to ACT!

Jesus has made us lots of promises we need to have faith in. Here’s one: “ I am with you until the end of the age.”

Right about now someone may be thinking to themselves, “Hmm, I need to start working on this”

No, my friends, that’s not how it works.
You can’t buy faith, and you can’t build it up on your own.

You see God is God and does not need to prove Himself to anyone, however, he is eager to show us what he can do and will do if we act in faith and reach out beyond ourselves. All we need to do is to go to Him in faith, then watch Him work.

Have you ever needed an all-important “right now” kind of blessing? Perhaps it’s a blessing that He and only He can give? Maybe it’something more than a miracle? And when He gave that blessing to you, you knew that regardless of what anybody thought of you, one thing you really know is that God cares so much for you that while He was blessing others, He took time out to bless you as well.

The prophet Isaiah says, “For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (Isaiah 64:4 NLT). Wise believers keep going with the faith to act knowing God is in the details.

Faith calls believers to wait. First, God may be preparing us to receive His blessings. Perhaps we need new skills or greater maturity. Sometimes people require fresh spiritual insight before they can understand what God is doing.

Second, God is teaching us to have confidence in Him. How would believers ever learn faith if God immediately fulfilled their every request? God teaches us to say two words: "Trust Me."

Last, God calls us to reach beyond ourselves into the community. We have no idea whether God is acting or not. But if we walk by faith and not by sight, God will be victorious. But be assured that God knows every situation and gives us what we need every time at the right time.

Waiting is rarely easy, particularly in this instant-everything world. The people in the house did not know what God was doing with Peter. They had to trust God with the details. Be patient while the Lord works out details. His best is on the way.

Monday Morning 4/2/2012

Yes I know its Tuesday. Yes I know its been a while since I posted. Just deal with it! HA HA :-D

“7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.”
(2 Timothy 4:7 NLT)

Adam and Eve ran and tried to hide.
Cain went out in the wilderness.
Moses took off for the desert.
Jesus went up the mountain or went into the garden sometimes to pray and sometimes to simply "get away from the crowds."
The Apostles took off when Jesus was arrested and had to be found when the news of the resurrection was started to spread.
Were they running away from something? Or running toward something?

Some people “run” to get away from something or someone.
Running away gives a break, a pause, a time to catch one’s breath.
Running away sometimes solves very little.
Running away can provide safety, escape, and a chance to recover.
Running away can put something behind us.
Running away can make one feel they have put off something that was going to happen anyways.
Running away with no purpose, no goal, no vision, is pointless. There is no value, no growth.
Running away is not always the answer.

Running TO something, on the other hand, is a little different perspective.

Sometimes running toward something requires something else to be moved out of the way.

Sure there are things that block the road. We can either let those things stop us cold or we can find a way through or around. Some people will run away from the things that block their way. They just don’t want to deal with it.

Running toward something is just as hard as running away from something; it’s just a different direction.

Sometimes we and what we do can look like absolute failures.

Carrying guilt or looking to blame others solves nothing. That’s running away. Running toward a goal does not carry the guilt. Running toward something uses guilt as a step to something better. Blame does nothing but make us feel better about ourselves. Blame hides deeper problems and is running away. It’s pointless.

Look at Paul.

Paul as Saul was mean and cruel, but he had to get past that part of his life.

When Paul traveled and started churches, Paul had trouble being accepted. People remembered his past. When Paul was beaten he never became bitter. When, during a storm at sea, other people on the boat were talking about leaving Paul OUT OF THE LIFEBOAT, he used it as an opportunity.

Paul sometimes had to run away But God used it as an opportunity. During his travels, Paul was wrong about Mark. He allowed this to separate him from a dear brother. Paul remembered Mark’s past failures. But it was God’s plan that Mark and Barnabas go a different direction from Paul. Not to run away, but to go in a different direction.

God had to move something out of the way for something better to happen.

As Paul pens these words that he has fought a good fight, Paul realizes that he would have done many things different in his life.

Sometimes in the book that is our life there are happy chapters, sometimes there are sad chapters, sometimes there are victories, but also know that the times of failure and running away are part of the work of God also.

But whether our book contains victory or failure, we must know how to write the last chapter and there is a time we do what we can and move on.

We get disappointed by others, we get disappointed by ourselves, but we cannot let bitterness, anger, and disappointment drive us away

God’s purpose for our lives is His glory. Maybe once we understand this one simple fact we will stop running away.