Lift Up Our Faith:         

Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed. (Heb 12:12-13)

This is God’s word of encouragement to us to lift up the hands of faith, and confirm the knees of prayer. Often our faith grows tired, languid, and relaxed, and our prayers lose their force and effectiveness.

The figure used here is a very striking one. The idea seems to be that we become discouraged and so timid that a little obstacle depresses and frightens us, and we are tempted to walk around it, and not face it: to take the easier way.

Perhaps it is some physical trouble that God is ready to heal, but the exertion is hard, or it is easier to secure some human help, or walk around in some other way.

There are many ways of walking around emergencies instead of going straight through them. How often we come up against something that appalls us, and we want to evade the issue with the excuse:

“I am not quite ready for that now.” Some sacrifice is to be made, some obedience demanded, some Jericho to be taken, some soul that we have not the courage to claim and carry through, some prayer that is hanging fire, or perhaps some physical trouble that is half healed and we are walking around it.

God says, “Lift up the hands that hang down.” March straight through the flood, and lo, the waters will divide, the Red Sea will open, the Jordan will part, and the Lord will lead you through to victory.

Don’t let your feet “be turned out of the way,” but let your body “be healed,” your faith strengthened. Go right ahead and leave no Jericho behind you unconquered and no place where Satan can say that he was too much for you. This is a profitable lesson and an intensely practical one. How often have we been in that place. Perhaps you are there today. "
—A. B. Simpson

Pay as little attention to discouragement as possible. Plough ahead as a steamer does, rough or smooth—rain or shine. To carry your cargo and make your port is the point.
—Maltbie D. Babcock

What It Means to Walk with God:             

He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. (1 John 2:6)

I have heard that if you walk three times a day at a brisk pace, it can help keep you in good shape physically. You won’t move as quickly as you move when you are running. Walking is a regulated motion, but as you do it, you make progress. You move forward gradually.

If we want to abide in Jesus, we must walk as He walked. The Bible says, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6).

Walking with God is a picture the Bible often uses to describe the Christian life. Galatians 5:16 says, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Colossians 2:6 tells us, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” And in Micah 6:8 we read, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Again and again the Bible tells us that we need to walk with God. It’s something we need to commit ourselves to. An interesting verse in Amos 3 gives us an important aspect of walking with God: “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” (verse 3).

In the original language, the term together carries the concept of two people moving as a single unit. To walk with God means moving together as a single unit. We are united toward the same goal. We are putting our strength toward the same end. We are moving together at the same pace.

To walk with God means that we are moving in harmony with Him. We are staying close to Him. It is the same concept as abiding.

By Greg Laurie

How to Live Fear Free in a Fearful World:            
by Lynette Kittle

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care.” -Matthew 10:29

If you’re feeling anxious, fearful, or distraught over current headlines, you’re not alone. An unstable and volatile world is causing people to feel vulnerable at home, in school, at work, in travel, and as they go about their daily activities.

Still Scripture encourages you to not be afraid of those who kill the body (Matthew 10:28). God doesn’t want you to live a fearful life and urges you to “Have no fear of sudden disaster” (Proverbs 3:25).

So how is possible to live fear free in a fearful world?

Since God has not give you a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), it’s up to you to choose to trust Him no matter what you’re facing, to walk around assured He is with you, and to believe His promise that, “Never will I leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

In life-threatening situations, you can be assured God is with you. Scripture describes what Stephen experienced when he came under attack, how  “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to Heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55).

God was with Stephen in the darkest of circumstances and when he died, he passed into new life. Like him, your life in Christ is eternal as explained “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:54).

You belong to God and your life is safe and secure in Him. As Jesus said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die.”

The Apostle Paul understood God’s eternal provision for life when he stated, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

Even if threats of death increase in the world, you don’t have to live a fearful life because nothing, not even death, can separate you from His care. Romans 8:38, 39 states, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Whatever situations life may bring, resist the urge to be afraid. As Stephen did, look to God, being assured He is with you knowing, “He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart” (Psalm 91:4).

Story of Ruths Trials;     

There is a story in the Bible about a woman called Ruth whose life didn't turn out the way she expected. There is an entire book of the Bible dedicated to her. It’s a quick read with only four chapters.

Ruth married an immigrant, and he died soon after, along with his brother- and father-in-law. After these tragedies, her mother-in-law, Naomi, decided to return to her land of birth with her daughter-in-laws, Ruth and Orpah and so the three women collected their belongings together and began walking towards Bethlehem.

A few hours into the journey, Naomi tells Ruth and Orpah, to go back to their families. Orpah kisses her mother-in-law and heads back. Grateful to return to her people and the only life she has known.Ruth had to make a choice. At that moment, her life wasn’t what she expected.

The Bible tells us so little of Ruth’s past. I’ve wondered if she had a home worth running back to or if an unknown future was better than the past she would leave behind.

Naomi urges her to leave again but Ruth responds:

Stop pushing me away, insisting that I stop following you!
Wherever you go, I will go.
Wherever you live, I will live.
Your people will be my people.
Your God will be my God.
Wherever you die, I will also die and be buried there near you.
May the Eternal One punish me—and even more so—if anything besides death comes between us. (Ruth 1:16-17 MSG)

Naomi’s life hadn’t turned out the way she expected. Now her attempt to send her daughter-in-law home hadn’t either. I imagine Naomi crying when she heard Ruth's words, the two women embracing on the side of a dusty road. I imagine Naomi tired, and full of questions for God, but grateful for Ruth's companionship. Together, they journey on and arrive in Naomi's hometown. Things were tough for the two widows. So tough Naomi tells her childhood friends, "Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.”

Ruth spent her days following behind harvesters picking up stalks of fallen grains. Boaz, one of Naomi's relatives, recognized Ruth and allowed her to pick up scraps in his fields. To make a long story short suffice to say Ruth and Boaz marry and they have a child, who has a child, who has a child, called David who becomes king of Israel.

The thing that encourages me is Ruth could never have expected she would one day be the great grandmother to a King.

We know how things worked out because we’ve read the end of the story. Ruth couldn’t see the ending.When she died, she could not have known the role she played in changing the world. She would only have looked back and thought, "Well, my life didn't go the way I expected!"

I think most of us will never know how the twists and turns in our lives have an impact on eternity. However, God does. 

Maybe you’re like me; maybe life hasn’t turned out the way you expected. If today, you’re sitting with many unmet expectations I invite you to pray this:

A Prayer for When Life Doesn't Turn Out Like You Expect:

God, our lives haven’t turned out the way we expected. At times we’re equally grateful, tired, and full of questions.

Teach us, Father, how to be our strength in our weakness.

Show us, how to not be afraid of tomorrow; to believe you are in control.

Remind us, your grace is enough.

Meet us in our expectations. Fill us with joy, fill us with peace, and let our lives brim over with hope.

Provide us with what we need, when we need it, to make it through this. Give us the eyes we need to see how you are working everything out for our good.

God, help us to be brave and not give up. Keep us looking to you when we feel like we can’t anymore. May our eyes and heart always be expecting you to get here soon, to revive us.

May your strength be our song and salvation, we pray. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

By Wendy van Eyck