Streams in the Desert.....

 Streams in the Desert

The land whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys and drinketh water of the rain of heaven; a land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year. (Deuteronomy 11:11-12)

Today, dear friends, we stand upon the verge of the unknown. There lies before us the new year and we are going forth to possess it. Who can tell what we shall find? What new experiences, what changes shall come, what new needs shall arise? But here is the cheering, comforting, gladdening message from our Heavenly Father, "The Lord thy God careth for it."

All our supply is to come from the Lord. Here are springs that shall never dry; here are fountains and streams that shall never be cut off. Here anxious one, is the gracious pledge of the Heavenly Father. If He be the Source of our mercies they can never fail us. No heat, no drought can parch that river, "the streams whereof make glad the city of God."

The land is a land of hills and valleys. It is not all smooth nor all down hill. If life were all one dead level the dull sameness would oppress us; we want the hills and the valleys. The hills collect the rain for a hundred fruitful valleys. Ah, so it is grace and brings down the shower of blessing; the hills, the bleak hills of life that we wonder at and perhaps grumble at, bring down showers. How many have perished in the wilderness, buried under its golden sands, who would have lived and thriven in the hill-country; how many would have been killed by the frost, blighted with winds, swept desolate of tree and fruit but for the hill- stern, hard, rugged, so steep to climb. God's hills are a gracious protection for His people against their foes!

We cannot tell what loss and sorrow and trial are doing. Trust only. The Father comes near to take our hand and lead us on our way today. It shall be a good, a blessed new year!

He leads us on by paths we did not know;
Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow,
Though oft we faint and falter on the way,
Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day;
Yet when the clouds are gone,
We know He leads us on.
He leads us on through all the unquiet years;
Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts and fears,
He guides our steps, through all the tangled maze
Of losses, sorrows, and o’er clouded days;
We know His will is done;
And still He leads us on.
--Nicholaus Ludwig Zinzendorf

A Living Hope..... Dr. Charles Stanley

 A Living Hope

Dr. Charles Stanley

1 Peter 1:3-5

Believers are born into a living hope. However, people who are without Christ have no foundation for their expectations and desires. Many live with a false sense of security. They assume that what is important in this life is the physical and material. But there is no safety in things (1 Tim. 6:9). Those who pursue wealth and health rather than God find that their dreams either go unfulfilled or fail to satisfy.

Believers anchor their hope in the solid rock of Jesus Christ. His words are always true and His promises always kept. I'll sometimes hear a person project his or her unfulfilled desires on God and then argue that He came up short. But Christians who make a request and submit to God's will always get an answer—yes, no, or wait.

The Lord does not disappoint those who seek His will. Don't misunderstand that statement. We might feel temporarily let down when something we hope for is not in God's plan. But He doesn't go back on the biblical promise to give His children the best (Isa. 48:17; 64:4). When one door closes, there is another about to open with something better behind it. Friends, the Lord cannot be outdone. We can't even wish ourselves as much good as God has in store.

The best choice a Christian can make is to fix his or her hope on the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome whatever fits His will for your life, and turn away from all that does not. Circumstances may shift and change, but Jesus never does. He is a living hope who never disappoints.

Make This the Year to Smile Without Fear..... KATY MCCOWN

 Make This the Year to Smile Without Fear

KATY MCCOWN

“Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future.” Proverbs 31:25 (NASB) 

They started small. So small, in fact, that we didn’t really notice them. They blended into the walls.

We had lived in our home for several years when we began to notice cracks in the walls. A little wrinkle here, a small chip there — but barely visible and certainly nothing to be concerned about.

After a while, though, the cracks expanded, and we finally decided to do something about them. With a bit of plaster and paint, we patched them and went on with the business of daily life.

But the cracks soon returned. And they didn’t just return — they kept growing. Pretty soon, everywhere we looked, we saw a crack. They sliced through the frames above doors and even stretched to the ceiling. This project had become more than just a paint job.

It turned out that our attention had been on the wrong thing. We’d been thinking about what we saw happening on the surface of our home when in reality, something in the foundation was weak and needed to be fixed. The cracks weren’t the problem; they were only a result of the problem.

In today’s key verse, we read about a woman who is dressed with strength and dignity, and she smiles fearlessly at what’s ahead: “Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future” (Proverbs 31:25). You may read this verse and, on the landscape of today’s world, feel like you could never smile without fear of the future. Or you may read some of the verses that surround our key verse and determine this woman must be some sort of spiritual superhero who doesn’t have anything to fear.

At first glance, the road to smiling without fear of the future might seem daunting. What are a spindle and distaff, anyway? (see Proverbs 31:19) But before you go searching the internet, let’s look at these verses through a different lens.

There’s a heart behind this … for the woman in Proverbs 31 and for us. The smile we desire to find is not something we work our way into. It’s something we receive as we respond to God.

Physically, the heart is a vital organ. Without it, we would instantly die. But the heart is vital not only to our physical lives; it is also vital to our spiritual lives. To live spiritually, we need more than just a beating heart. We need a holy heart.

With our hearts we believe in God and love Him. (Romans 10:10; Luke 10:27) Our hearts pour out truth, or they seep lies. (Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 12:34) And from our hearts bubble springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

God is far more interested in our motives than He is in our motions. Yes, our actions are important, but before we can produce actions that glorify God, and before we can smile without fear of the future, we must have hearts positioned and conditioned to respond to God.

After years of bearing the weight of our house, the beams holding my house in place had begun to shift. That shifting caused everything to droop. As the foundation drooped, the walls and ceilings cracked.

We hired a crew of experts to come help us. It was tedious, loud and grueling work. But once the foundation was stabilized, we could finally repair the cracks for good.

Maybe your heart has spent years settling beneath the weight of sin, fear or the cares of this life. Maybe you’ve been exhausting yourself with daily plaster and paint, and you don’t know whether you have any energy left to consider your heart. I won’t lie to you; heart work is hard work. But God’s Word can lift our hearts into a stable place and make us capable of standing in uncertain times.

When we position and condition our hearts to respond to God, we will find ourselves on the path to becoming women who smile without fear of the future.

Dear God, I admit sometimes it can be easier to try to arrange a disaster-free future with my own efforts and plans. Today, help me first deal with my heart and trust You to handle my future. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY:
1 Samuel 16:7, “The LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.’” (ESV)  

5 Ways to Engage More Deeply With God’s Word This Year..... By Britnee Bradshaw

 5 Ways to Engage More Deeply With God’s Word This Year

By Britnee Bradshaw

Today's Bible Verse: “Keep my commandments and live, And my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; Write them on the tablet of your heart.” – Proverbs 7:2-3

The wonderful thing about God’s word is that it is so powerful in changing everything about our lives! It aligns us more closely with the heart of God because He and His word are one!

I’ve created a list of 5 ways we can engage more deeply with God’s word this year so that our lives can look, feel, and be more like Christ’s. I hope this lists helps you in your personal pursuit of God’s word and that you are encouraged to engage with it more deeply this year than ever before!

1. Prioritize Quiet Time

We can’t sustain a Christian lifestyle on the scraps of a Sunday sermon, or a bible study. Being quiet before the Lord every day deepens our relationship with Him, and in turn, it strengthens our ear to hear Him speak to us. Engaging the Word of God is no good if we don’t prioritize engaging the actual person of God, and doing so on a daily basis.

2. Choose a Scripture a Day to Meditate On

After we’ve had our quiet time with the Lord, it’s very easy to go on about our day without truly meditating on what we’ve studied. To meditate means to think deeply or carefully on, or to rehearse, something for a period of time. The more we surround ourselves with God’s Word, the more it will become embedded in our hearts and the more deeply we will engage it.

3. Talk About the Word in Your Day to Day

This is probably one of my favorite ways to engage the Word of God. Incorporating it into the rhythms of our lives is, essentially, what makes us more like Christ! I love weaving Scripture into my normal routine like cooking dinner, or watching TV. There is no part of our lives that there isn’t a scripture for! We don’t have to be super deep about this either. It can be as simple as asking ourselves, “Am I cooking food that is going to help build my temple (body) and strengthen it, or is this meal going to hurt it or tear it down?” It is so easy to live by the word when we actually apply it to the regularities of our lives.

4. Flip Moments of Frustration or Anger Into Teachable Moments

Our emotions are given to us by God. And most of the time, not all, but most, we are justified in feeling the emotions we feel. What matters is how we interact with those emotions! So, when we feel frustrated or angry, we can take the emotion itself as a sign that we need to bring God’s word into the situation. This is part of being on guard, which Scripture reminds us about, but it also serves as a way to engage Scripture in the hard moments. The hard moments are some of the best times to use Scripture because it strengthens our ability to not submit to our emotions, but to submit to Christ’s lordship over our lives!

5. Invite the Holy Spirit Into Your Prayer

Prayer is our direct communication to our Heavenly Father. It’s through and by prayer that we understand who we are and what God wants us to do. It’s also through prayer that we build a beautiful relationship with Him. Sometimes, our prayers can be convoluted with our own desires for ourselves vs God’s desires for us. There’s nothing wrong with us asking for things in prayer! However, that shouldn’t be the reason we pray. We pray to know God’s will and understand what he desires, so that we can walk in that. One thing that I’ve been working to implement in my prayer life is asking the Holy Spirit to come and be an active participant. To speak to Him, and then to still my heart and mind and allow Him to speak back to me. The Holy Spirit knows all the secrets of Heaven and he reveals all things to us as he is led by the Father (1 Cor 2:10-12). He (the Holy Spirit) knows the mind of God and will help us to pray effectual prayers!

How are you engaging more deeply with God’s Word this year?

When God Is Doing Something New, and We’re Still Stuck in the Old..... by Debbie McDaniel

 When God Is Doing Something New, and We’re Still Stuck in the Old

by Debbie McDaniel

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Is. 43:18-19

Sometimes...God is wanting to do something "new" and yet we're still stuck in the "old." It's hard at times. To let go. Of what's familiar, and what we know. It seems easier to stay "comfortable," to just keep going with the flow, not to mess anything up. But then "new" happens, and often sends us spiraling, on one big, long loop.

For those who like change - "new" is mostly exciting.

For those who don't like change - "new" is mostly stressful.

Your family, if you're like most, is probably a mix of those two traits.

But here's what I love about God. He thinks and works outside our own box of thinking. He doesn't always work in the ways that we would have chosen for our "new." If we had to have a "new."

He sees the big picture. He knows what He's doing. He works behind the scenes of life that unfold our every day, in the places where we can't always see or understand all the “why's.”

So we can trust...that He has our best in mind. That He's got our back. He’s with us right now. And He's secured our future too.

Sometimes our "new" comes out of great blessing, new opportunities. And sometimes it comes through great pain, huge loss.

People move, life happens, decisions are made, many change jobs, kids grow up, and there are times we might go through some really tough struggles. We may even start to feel cheated. Like life is unfair.

But it still breathes this truth: God is not finished with our lives yet. You're still here. And He has great purpose in all that you walk through, even in every life change and season.

Whether we recognize it or not, we’re rubbing shoulders every day with people that we needed to meet in our "new," however hard that new thing may be.

We can rest in His care for us. He knows. He sees. He works in ways we don't always "get," but there's peace in knowing we don't have to try to control it all. We can let go - of the need to figure it all out, and the striving to make things happen.

We can trust Him.

Our future awaits, and there's still good around the bend. God has more in store.

Peace.

Intersecting Faith & Life: If you find yourself in a new season right now, or you’re struggling to find the good in changing times, be assured that God has the best in store. Choose to trust that He’s working on your behalf today, even in ways you may not fully see or understand.

Further Reading: 
Isaiah 55:8-9
Jeremiah 29:11
Revelation 21:5

A Prayer to Jumpstart Your Prayer Life..... By Carrie Lowrance

 A Prayer to Jumpstart Your Prayer Life

By Carrie Lowrance

I will praise You as long as I live, lifting up my hands in prayer. - Psalm 63:4 (NLT)

Commit to Prayer Time - Our lives get so crazy. We get overloaded at work, the kids have to be shuffled everywhere and then there are the unexpected things that pop up. It’s easy to let our prayer life become stagnant. This year, commit to spending 15, 30 or 60 minutes with the Lord on a daily basis. Pencil it in on your calendar so it becomes ingrained in your daily life.

Pray without Distraction - Sit down with your family and explain that you want to really lean into your prayer life this year. Let them know that from this time to this time each day, you won’t be available and that this is your prayer time. Make a sign for the door of your War Room so your young children will know not to disturb you.

Pray Spontaneously - A lot of people think you have to be in church to pray but this is not true. You can pray any time, anywhere. It’s always good to pray spontaneously. If you run into a friend or hear of someone who needs prayer, don’t wait till you can write it down. Pray right then and there. Pray for people whose names float through your mind during your busy day. Pray when you feel a tugging or stirring in your heart. Praying this way is excellent because you never know if the person you are thinking of needs prayer at that very moment.

Pray Specifically - Take some time to step up your prayer game. Instead of 'blanket praying’ as we all do at some point when we are absolutely exhausted, take some time to write down specifics. If you know someone who needs surgery, write a specific prayer for it. If you know someone who is going through a divorce, write a specific prayer for that. If you know someone who just had a baby, write down specifics to pray over the situation. If you know someone who just got engaged, write a specific prayer for that. Praying specifically for a person or situation not only makes you feel closer to the Lord, it makes you feel closer to the person.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord,

I come to You over my prayer life right now. I know that I have been lax and have been so distracted lately. I want to renew my commitment to spending time with You everyday and to jumpstart my prayer life again. But I’m scared that I will become distracted and fail like so many other times. I pray that You will renew a passion in me for this part of my life. I pray that I will have a fresh, laser like focus on spending time with You and in praying for others. Help me to recognize the stirring in my heart when someone needs spontaneous prayer. Help me to recognize when it’s You that wakes me up in the middle of the night to be a ‘watchman’ and to have the clarity to hear your voice.

In Your Name I pray,

Amen.

Your Strategy for This New Year..... Pastor Adrian Rogers

 Your Strategy for This New Year

Pastor Adrian Rogers

“These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”
John 15:11

Do you depend upon Jesus Christ? I mean totally depend upon Him? Here’s the way you can tell—are you resting in Him today?

You see, when you are totally committed to Jesus Christ, you rest in Him. You realize that for your every need, it is necessary for Him to supply it.

Have you ever looked at a branch? It has no other source of life than the vine. If you asked that branch, “What’s your secret for your healthy leaves and fruit?” the branch would answer, “My secret is that I’m resting in the vine.”

“But what about your needs?” you ask.

“I know I have needs, but that’s not my responsibility. My response is to rest in the vine’s ability to provide. I don’t produce the fruit. I just bear it.”

Are you resting in the Lord today? Will you choose to rest in Him for the next 365?