Suddenly Moments

What do you do when you are having a bad day? Do you ever just worship God? Give thanks, glory or praise? Understandably being the humans that we are—this is not always our default reaction.

But I want to challenge you to step out of your normal default box and into the realm of suddenly moments—that result in God shaking our life to its very core and bringing about change.

I heard an amazing message—totally worth repeating—on Acts 16. Follow along with me as I reiterate what was happening and how God—our Knight in shining armor suddenly comes to save the day.

Paul and Silas, in the will of God—directed by Him—went to Macedonia. As they were lingering in Philippi, they met a God-fearing woman named Lydia who on hearing the Word of the Lord believed with all her heart, as a result she and her household were baptized and insisted the men stay at their home. At this point all is going well, Paul’s preaching—God’s moving and they are invited to stay and be cared for, in a rather nice place. Acts 16:6-15

One day on the way to prayer a demon possessed psychic, slave girl, started following them around, drawing attention to them by yelling out “These men are working for the Most High God. They’re laying out the road of salvation for you!”

Paul, not wanting to be in agreement with her or to be identified as being with her, ignored her for a few days then finally when too annoyed he cast the demon out of her. The slave girl was suddenly free and her owners very upset—their lucrative little business had come to an end. Consequently, Paul and Silas were dragged into the market place—they were lied about and accused, causing the crowd to turn into an angry gang. Their clothes were torn off and they were ordered to be severely beaten and thrown into prison, under high security wearing leg irons.  Acts 16:16-24

Paul and Silas—bloody and beaten, sit chained in prison. Would you say they were having a bad day? Absolutely!

What did they do? Did they accuse God of unfaithfulness by whining and complaining?

No—just the opposite! Paul and Silas were found praying and worshipping.

What would you do?

I love how Paul and Silas handled the situation! Their default heart and soul reaction was to pray and worship God—in doing so they were giving thanks.

I pray our default heart reaction would be to silence the mouth of the accuser and give thanks by worshipping God.

How? Why? Because the truth is—He is always good. We must train our heart and soul to worship and give thanks according to truth—not circumstance.

This is when the suddenly moments of God’s faithfulness rule our life.

What happens next in Acts 16:25-26 is the cry of our heart.

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

Suddenly there was a great earthquake! Paul and Silas’ worship caused God to shake the very foundations and set the prisoners free—the scripture says immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

Not just our own freedom from the prisons we find ourselves in—occurs when we worship, but freedom for others as well.

I don’t know about you but I need and want God to suddenly shake the foundation of various situations in my life and in the life of those I love and care about.

This Word from the book of Acts has brought fresh understanding to the scripture in 2 Thessalonians 5:18

“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Please be encouraged to grab ahold of and own this concept. Worship God, giving Him thanks in every situation—lifting our eyes from life and circumstances to the God of the impossible—the One who can suddenly shake any situation and change the landscape of impossible surroundings.

Apology: The advertisements on my page are allowed by the blog site WordPress, I personally have nothing to do with them…sorry for any inconvenience.

Fully Convinced

Do you ever wavier in your belief?

Are you fully convinced God will do all He’s promised? I’m not sure why this is such a tall order—but it is.

Romans 4:20-22

He [Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

What has God promised? Well, the entire Bible is promise after promise. And we must be fully convinced that God will do all He’s promised. Fully convinced—no doubting.

A doubting person is said to be double minded and unstable in all their ways. It’s crucial to fully believe so we are not unstable in all our ways

James 1:6-8

Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Remember God’s Faithfulness is Not On Trial (click to read). He is faithful—He can be trusted. No matter what hasn’t happened in the past, it’s essential to take God at His Word—understanding, He’s not a man that He would lie (Num. 23:19). Every Word is truth—every Word can be believed.

Recently I experienced a crisis of belief. The story unfolds as this…it was an extremely windy, cold day and I was at my son’s soccer game. I was working on being thankful for the weather and felt as if the Lord asked “why don’t you pray and ask for the wind to stop?” So I did—I prayed and asked Him to please stop the wind. After praying I looked around, semi waiting for it to stop and when it didn’t I just shrugged. I got what I expected—nothing.

Then my other son, who was hunkered down next to me, asked “why don’t you ask God to stop the wind.”  I responded “I did.”

What he spoke next stabbed deep—as if God Himself were asking. He said, “Did you believe it when you asked? I truthfully had to say “no.”

My crisis of belief was that I didn’t even expect God to answer. I just routinely asked Him. It was true lip service—not heart knowing belief.

Yes, I have faith for a lot of things but that just won’t do, I’m thirsty for more and on a quest to become a whole hearted believer, fully convinced that every promise in His Word is true!

In the world of Christ centered people fractional faith should not exist. It’s imperative that we be fully convinced He answers prayers. We need to want to be the kind of people who ask without doubting—just as the Word says.

How do we move from half-hearted belief to fully convinced?

Romans 4:20-21 says [1] He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, [2] but was strengthened in faith, [3] giving glory to God.

1.      We don’t wavier

·         Determine to believe—Isaiah 50:7

2.      We get strengthened in faith by

·         Repenting and asking forgiveness for  unbelief—Acts 3:19

·         Submit unbelief to God, resist the devil—James 4:7

·         Pray asking God to heal unbelief—Mark 9:24, John17:5-6

·         Exchange unbelief for faith—Isaiah 53:3-6, Galatians 3:13–14

·         Read, hear and obey the Word of God—James 1:22-25, Romans 10:17

·         Worship—Luke 4:8

·         In everything give thanks—1 Thessalonians 5:18

·         Fast—Mark 9:29,

·         Invite the Holy Spirit into the empty place of unbelief in our heart and life—Galatians 5:22-25

·         Wait on the Lord—Psalm 27:14

3.      We give glory to God

·         Humbly acknowledge God, giving Him glory for everything—John 7:18

Please join me in my quest to become a whole hearted believer.

Be encouraged to set your heart and soul to be fully convinced that what He promises He is also able to perform—and your faith will be accounted to you as righteousness!

 

Romans 4:19-25

Abraham didn’t focus on his own inability and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.

Apology: The advertisements on my page are put up by the blog site WordPress, I personally have nothing to do with them…sorry for any inconvenience.

Disappointment

Disappointment is an irritating nag that suffocates joy in our life. Learning the liberating secret that frees us from its heaviness—is vital. If we don’t get out from under disappointments thumb, we end up cynical and distrustful in life.

If disappointment is your constant companion as it used to be mine, I’ve got good news for you—disappointment is not a way of life.

Disappointment is a spirit that settles on you. It’s the opposite of wearing rose-colored glasses, you’re wearing glasses alright, but they are tinted with disappointment—everything you see, hear and do, comes and goes through their filter.

Disappointment established its residence in my life when I was young. I grew up without my father, seeing him maybe twice a month. He constantly promised big things and I believe he really wanted to deliver them, but because of his own dysfunction—he lacked the ability to see his word through. I always wanted to believe he would keep his word, even though my mom consistently warned me that he wouldn’t. Mostly he would show up late, or not at all and very seldom keep his grandiose promises.

As I grew up I continuously expected to be disappointed, that way when things didn’t work out, the pain of being let down would be softened.

I lived with the expectation that people would not keep their word and that they would eventually disappoint me. The problem with that mindset is that it’s judgmental. Wearing the glasses of disappointment causes us to weigh and measure others unjustly. These glasses also cause us to get into the mode of self-protection, where we mistrust and doubt love, becoming prone to offense.

Accordingly, we unhealthily guard our heart from love—forming walls. Every disappointing offense is brick and mortar—building for ourselves a nice little fortress around our heart—making it difficult for loved ones to penetrate, let alone God. The interesting fact about self-protection is that it breeds selfishness and sets us up to live in a world dictated by self.

The secret I’ve learned, is that my trust was misdirected. Granted parents, spouses and family should be trust worthy, but because we live in such a fallen selfish world, where sin abounds, some people are dysfunctional and do not know how to properly love each other. I now have grace for such people, since I myself used to be one!

What I mean by misdirected, is that we are trusting in all the wrong things and in the wrong people.

This may sound harsh, but God really is the only one who is completely trust worthy. Why? Because God is not human. Human nature at its best is not flawless, but God is.

This is a hard shift to make but completely doable, mainly we take a huge leap of faith and decide that yes, God’s Word—the Bible, is true and I am going to believe it! God is worthy of my trust and I am going to give it to Him!

Numbers 23:19 says,

God is not man, one given to lies, and not a son of man changing his mind. Does he speak and not do what he says? Does he promise and not come through?

At first it’s an issue of the will, we will ourselves to trust and believe in Gods faithfulness—He provides grace for such a task. With the issue of trust settled, it becomes a heart issue. We learn to allow God to heal our heart and soul, thus possess it.

Now, all our trust is in God and His will for our life. We no longer trust in our job for money—no, God’s the one who supplies all our needs and the job is just the tool He is using.

We no longer trust people or situations to rescue us, but we trust God—He’s the rescue. He will use people and situations, but they are not our hope—He is.

A lot of the time we say “If I just had that job (or that house or that spouse or that situation) then my life would be easier or better. The truth is, with that mindset our trust is misdirected.

Instead we ought to live our life knowing—Yes, God does bring opportunities that better our life and make it abundant, but those opportunities are not what we place our hope in.

Our Hope is Christ. Everything else is extra!

Proverbs 13:12 says,

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.

Please be encouraged to place all your trust in God, where your hope will not be deferred!

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. Jeremiah 17:7