2020-03-23
2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV
How do you see yourself? Are you doing well or struggling to be good enough? God sees each of us as righteous. That can be hard to get our heads around, especially when we feel insecure. We can feel like we’ve made too many mistakes to possibly be seen as righteous. But our righteousness is nothing to do with us. God takes unrighteous people like us and makes them ‘righteous’. The Bible says: ‘People are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners’ (Romans 4:5 NLT). We can’t earn our righteousness. There’s no amount of good works we need to do in order to be righteous. It’s through believing in Jesus. God made His sinless Son to ‘be sin’ and to die for us so that sin was defeated. Now, when God looks at us He doesn’t see a sinner, instead He sees the righteousness of Jesus. When we do something wrong, we can feel guilty about it and that feeling can make us think we’re unrighteous. But Jesus took away all our guilt, along with our sin. When we become Christians, and we’re made righteous through faith, we are a new creation. The Bible says: ‘Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun’ (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT). And guilt is really just our spirit telling us that we’re doing something that’s at odds with our new life. Because God sees us as righteous, we can approach Him at any time with complete confidence (take a look at Ephesians 3:12). We don’t have to hide from God, because He sees us through Jesus – the One who is completely righteous.
Job 15-17; Matt 24:36-51; Ps 55:1-11; Prov 8:17-18
2020-03-06
Mark 11:24 NIV
God doesn’t just want us to pray, He wants us to pray with faith. The Bible says: ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him’ (Hebrews 11:6 NIV). Praying with faith means we’re trusting God for the outcome. It means praying expectantly without doubting that God will come through for us. However, just because we believe God will answer us doesn’t mean we’ll get everything we’re asking for. God knows what will be best for us and for those we love. And He wants us to experience that. If we’re asking for something that doesn’t line up with His will and desire to give us the best things, then we may find that He says no. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have enough faith; it simply means it wasn’t the right thing for us. So when we’re praying in faith, we’re praying in the knowledge that God’s faithful and good. The Bible says: ‘When you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind’ (James 1:6 NIV). Whatever we’re asking God for, we need to avoid doubting Him. It can be tempting to start doubting when we’ve been praying for a long time. We may have to pray many times before we see God answer us. We have to have persistence, and the faith that He does hear us. The Bible actually tells us to never stop praying (take a look at 1 Thessalonians 5:17). God wants us to go to Him with all our requests and burdens. So let’s take them to Him in faith.
Gen 30:25-31:55; Matt 21:1-11; Ps 136:13-26; Prov 6:32-35
Mark 11:24 NIV
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “The Prince of Preachers,” said: “Believe God until…you can thank Him for the answer. If the answer still tarries outwardly, do not pray in such a way that it’s evident you’re not believing for it. Such a prayer in place of being a help will be a hindrance; and when you are finished praying you’ll find that your faith has weakened, or has entirely gone. The urgency that you felt to offer this kind of prayer is clearly from self…It may not be wrong to mention the matter in question to the Lord again, if He is keeping you waiting, but be sure you do it in such a way that it implies faith. Do not pray yourself out of faith. You may tell Him that you’re waiting…still believing Him and therefore praise Him for the answer. There is nothing that so fully clinches faith, as to be so sure of the answer that you can thank God for it. Prayers that pray us out of faith deny both God’s promise in His Word, and His whisper ‘Yes,’ that He gave us in our hearts. Such prayers are but the expression of the unrest of one’s heart, and unrest implies unbelief…’For we which have believed do enter into rest’ (Hebrews 4:3). This prayer that prays ourselves out of faith frequently arises from centering our thoughts on the difficulty rather than on God’s promise. Abraham ‘considered not his own body…he staggered not at the promise of God’ (Romans 4:19, 20). May we watch and pray that we enter not into the temptation of praying ourselves out of faith.”
Soul food: Gen 30:25-31:55; Matt 21:1-11; Ps 136:13-26; Prov 6:32-35
2020-02-22
2 Chronicles 20:21 NIV
Sixth, thank God in advance. Imagine standing on a mountaintop looking across a valley toward a mountain on the other side. A big battle is about to take place down below. On one mountain, three enemy nations are poised and waiting to devastate Israel. The Israelites are on your mountain, and their leader Jehoshaphat tells them, “Here’s God’s battle plan. All of those who sing in the choir, I want you out front.” So the army goes marching into battle with the choir on the front line singing praises to God. Did the plan work? Yes. The opposing armies got confused and ended up killing each other – and all God’s people had to do was divide up the plunder! Why did God do it this way? As a visual object lesson to teach us to praise Him in faith even before the victory takes place. When you pray, “Lord, I know I have problems, but I thank You in advance because there’s no situation You can’t take care of,” three things happen: (1) Your atmosphere changes. You no longer feel afraid because you have the assurance of God’s presence. (2) Your attitude changes. You begin to say, “Lord, this may be too big for me, but it’s not too big for You.” (3) Your approach changes. Instead of speaking words of doubt, you start speaking words of faith. And because your faith honors God, He honors your faith and the battle begins to turn in your favour. And here’s another important key to victory: Don’t just praise God for a while and then quit; keep praising Him until your breakthrough comes.
Soul food: Ecc 9-12; Matt 16:13-28; Ps 36; Prov 5:21-23
2 Chronicles 20:21 NIV
Finally, we need to thank God in advance. Imagine standing on a mountaintop looking across a valley toward a mountain on the other side. A big battle is about to take place down below. On one mountain, three enemy nations are ready and waiting to devastate Israel. The Israelites are on your mountain, and their leader Jehoshaphat tells them to put those who sing in the choir at the front. So the army goes marching into battle with the choir on the front line singing praises to God. It doesn’t make sense to put the singers on the front line – they weren’t equipped to fight. But the plan worked. The opposing armies got confused and ended up killing each other. It doesn’t always make sense to us to praise God while we’re in a battle. We can find it challenging to thank Him for the victory before that victory has taken place. When we’re in a tough battle, and it looks like we’re losing, praising and thanking God can seem like the last thing we want to do. But it’s important to praise Him in faith even before the victory takes place. When we thank Him in advance three things happen: 1) Our atmosphere changes. We no longer feel afraid because we have the assurance of God’s presence. 2) Our attitude changes. We begin to believe that there’s nothing impossible for God. That even though our problem is big, our God is bigger. 3) Our approach changes. Instead of speaking words of doubt, we start speaking words of faith. And because our faith honours God, He honours our faith and the battle begins to turn in our favour. We need to keep praising Him until our breakthrough comes.
Ecc 9-12; Matt 16:13-28; Ps 36; Prov 5:21-23
