Now Is Not The Time

We are very good at making excuses as to why God can't use us in ministry. Now is not the time for more excuses, but for action. God desires to use you at your full potential. Just remember you aren't the message; you are the messenger. So think about these simple things I've compiled and put them to good use. Stop making excuses and just do what God wants you to do.

-Dear God, I have a problem, and it's me. 

-Realize God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts. 

-Understand that growing old is inevitable, but growing up is optional. 

-Recognize the key to happiness is Jesus and His door is always open. 

-Your silence is often misinterpreted, but never misquoted. 

-Do the math and count your blessings, not your shortcomings. 

-Your faith is the ability to not panic. 

-When you laugh every day, its like inner jogging. 

-If you worry, you didn't pray, but if you prayed, don't worry. 

-Remember as a child of God, prayer is kind of like calling home everyday. 

-Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape. 

-The most important things in your house are the people. 

He who dies with the most toys is still dead regardless. 

-A grudge is a heavy thing to carry. 

-When we get tangled up in our problems, be still so God can untangle the mess.

No more excuses-Resist the devil, rebuke your doubts, and revitalize your vision. If God is for you, who can be against you!

Hope Or Hopeless

We all need hope. It is the most vital ingredient of life. Without it, far too many people come to the conclusion that they are powerless in the face of difficulties. "It can't be helped," becomes their motto. 

Without hope, they won't make needed changes. They feel powerless. Without hope, they will grimly accept the unacceptable and believe that things are about as good as they will ever get. 

You can become a prisoner of your circumstances or a practitioner of hope. You can feel sorry for yourself and helpless to do anything about your problems, or you can believe there is a realistic chance for something better. 

You do have a chance. You have a chance at life. You have a chance at success. You have a chance at wholeness. You have a chance at meaningful relationships and, though you may not believe it, at happiness, if you have hope. Nothing is impossible if your hope is in God. 

So, will you be a prisoner of circumstances, stuck and helpless, or a practitioner of hope? It can mean the difference between life and death, peace or war, and either satisfaction or discontent.

    

The Love Of God

When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us. That's where the love of God comes into play. God is the kind of friend you can sit on a porch and swing with, never say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you've every had. 

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. Giving God all your love is an assurance that He'll love you back. It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone, but the love of God lasts a life time. 

The Bible indicates that looks can deceive and wealth can fade away. God makes you smile, because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright.  His love makes your heart glow. So dream what God wants you to dream; go where God wants to go; be what God wants you to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things God wants you to do. 

Godly happiness is enough to make you sweet, brings enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, and enough hope to keep you happy even in the worst of times.

The love of God always puts you in others' shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too. The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way through the love of God.

Gods' love is for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried, for only they can appreciate the importance of how the love of God has touched their lives. Earthly love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a tear. Godly love begins with repentance, grows with faith, and ends with eternal life.

Your brightest future will always be based on your forgotten past. You can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches. When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. So live your life full of the love of God so that when you die, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying. Let your existence be a difference maker because of the love of God.

Expectation

Has anybody ever asked you, "Well, what did you expect?" 

Sometimes, our greatest disappointments have come because we expected something that was simply not realistic. We all know that irrational expectations can cause untold disappointment to those who dream beyond their means or abilities.

We live with the expectation that someone else will make us happy, but that is irrational. Nobody can make you happy. That is your job. If you expect others to make you happy or keep you happy, you know you will be disappointed again and again. People will fail you as you fail them. It happens!

Some Christians have the expectation that life will be, for the most part, relatively easy and problem free after they accept Jesus. This, too, is irrational, because bad things can happen and giving can be difficult. The Bible says that, "It rains on the just and the unjust." If you expect things to be easy just because you're a Christian, if I expect not to have problems, if I expect to avoid pain and heartache, I know I will be in for serious disappointment.   

Problems are here to stay!

I don't mean to paint a picture of life as bleak and miserable because it isn't. In fact, I think it is amazingly wonderful, and all the more wonderful when I don't expect everything to be perfect because I'm a Christian. I expect problems, but I also expect to find joy in the Lord. I do not expect others to always please me, but I do expect to be responsible for my own well-being in Christ Jesus.

So what do you expect? I think if you can answer that question well, you can expect to be much happier.

Comforter (Part 2)

There is one essential spiritual ingredient needed. That essential ingredient is intercession. This is seen in the account of Job for God finally broke through to Job after Elihu shared this truth:

Job 33:19-26 "A man may be chastened on a bed of pain with constant distress in his bones, so that his very being finds food repulsive and his soul loathes the choicest meal. His flesh wastes away to nothing, and his bones, once hidden, now stick out. His soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the messengers of death."Yet if there is an angel on his side as a mediator, one out of a thousand, to tell a man what is right for him,to be gracious to him and say, `Spare him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for him'--then his flesh is renewed like a child's; it is restored as in the days of his youth. He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God's face and shouts for joy; he is restored by God to his righteous state." 

Today spiritually we understand that the ‘mediator' Elihu speaks of is Jesus Christ, who intercedes for us according to Hebrews 7:25. Believers in Christ are empowered by the Holy Spirit to share in this ministry of intercession.

When we visit the afflicted, we don't need to explain to them why they are suffering. We do not need to tell them what to do, unless they specifically ask our advice. Instead, we should let them know: "I will walk with you through this. I will be a shoulder you can cry on. I will bring you before the Lord in prayer so that He may touch you." When we intercede in this fashion, it is not we who are interceding but the Spirit of Jesus Himself who is interceding through us.

Don't ever place religious condemnation on the sufferer. Don't say to him, "Strengthen your faith, pray, and God will restore you." This is not comfort, it's a Satanic accusation. If your faith is so strong, then you should pray. The book of James specifically states that those who are sick should be healed through the prayers of others in James 5:14-16. Should a doctor say to a patient: "Make yourself well"? When another person is afflicted, spiritually we are the doctors, and the afflicted is the patient. We are the ones who should exercise faith. Of course, the sufferer should confess any sins in his/her heart, but the Holy Spirit is the one who should convict of sin. It's not up to us to point out secret sins which we imagine they must be hiding. 

Speculation over the why things happen can prevent the where they end. Just be an encourager and burden bearer for those that are hurting around you.

Comforter (Part 3)

Hebrew 2:18 NIV "Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."

To offer true comfort to others, we must also intercede for them. How do we learn to intercede for others?
God has a school where he teaches intercession. This school teaches only one course, which is called suffering. No one likes to suffer, but we will all face it in our lifetime. We cannot reject the fact that even the righteous suffer.

We must, in fact, embrace suffering as the means by which we become effective intercessors. Kathryn Kuhlman, who ministered healing to thousands, herself took medicine every day. Her experience of poor health made her able to intercede effectively for others who were sick. I have more sympathy and understanding today for stroke victims and what they go through trying to recover because I am one. I thought I knew how to minister to people who had faced this adversity, but now I really know.

Remember that Jesus Himself helps us in our sufferings because He shared in them according to Hebrews 2:18. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that He suffered as a sinner, though He committed no sin. He does not point His finger down at us from a high pedestal. It is true that Jesus rebukes us, just as He rebuked His disciples for lack of faith in the storm on the Sea of Galilee in Luke 8:24-25. But remember, He was in the same boat with them as He rebuked them. 

The same principle holds for the prophets. Jeremiah warned and rebuked Israel for her sin, but when God's punishment came, Jeremiah did not separate himself from the people, but suffered through the same consequences. When righteous Daniel interceded for his people, he did not refer to "their sin" but "our sin" in Daniel 9:4-19. So if we, though blameless, suffer the same troubles that sinners suffer, we should thank God as Paul said, to the church at Corinth, for He "comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, by the comfort which God has ministered to us."

Comforter (Part 1)

Job 6:14 NIV "A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty."

Job, in his affliction, called his three friends "miserable comforters" in Job 16:2. However, when we look at what they did on Job's behalf, we see how far beyond our feeble efforts they went to comfort the afflicted. How then can we possibly avoid the thoughts of being "miserable comforters"?

First of all, we should recognize that comfort is more in the heart than in the words. Although Job's friends stayed with Job, spiritually their hearts were not "with" him. Rather, they kept themselves above Job. They said, "Pray and God will lift you up to be as we are". True comfort says, "I am willing to go down where you are to share your feelings of grief, anger, loneliness, and despair". For comfort to be transferred, the comforter must place himself at the same level as the afflicted. It's just like plugging a plug into an outlet. In order for a connection to be made, the plug must line up at the same level with the outlet. Job's friends gave no indication that they had ever been in a similar predicament. They gave no hint that they understood or sympathized with his feelings.

Secondly, we should never react defensively when the sufferer attacks us. Like a wounded animal, the sufferer will lash out at anyone, even those who are sincerely trying to help. We should expect this, and not answer back when they wound us. Job's friends did not do this. When Job lashed out at his friends, first they tried to justify themselves, and then they returned the attack. They became more and more defensive, more and more strident in their accusations against Job, and less and less concerned with Job's suffering.

Many times during his speeches, Job even lashes out at God. But God understood that Job was reacting from his deep pain, and does not count his words against him as sin. Just as God overlooked Job's tirades against Him, so we also should overlook when the afflicted attack us with their words. Don't be a miserable comforter. Be one who truly identifies with what the afflicted one is going through and be a way maker for the one that is hurting.