God is Trustworthy..... Craig Denison

 God is Trustworthy

Craig Denison

Weekly Overview: 

It’s vital to the Christian life that we as sons and daughters of the most high God allow our affections to be stirred by the loving, powerful nature of our heavenly Father. Too often we feel that God is distant or separated from us. Too often we allow misconceptions or lies to place a rift between us and experiencing God. It’s in reminding ourselves of God’s character that lies are broken and a pathway is laid for us to encounter his tangible love. Open your heart and mind and receive fresh revelation of the goodness of God this week. Allow your affections to be stirred and your heart to be filled with desire to seek the face of your heavenly Father.

Scripture:“And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” - Psalm 9:10

Devotional:

Our heavenly Father calls us, his children, to place our trust solely in him for provision, well-being, and guidance. We see God call his people to a lifestyle of trust throughout Scripture, but time and time again the people of God take matters into their own hands. Why is trust so difficult? Why do we have a hard time placing the burden of provision, well-being, and guidance in the capable hands of our heavenly Father? The only good posture of our hearts is total trust in our God. The only way we will experience the full reality, love, and power of our heavenly Father is in trusting him. It’s when we trust him that we allow him to move in our lives. It’s when we trust him that we position ourselves to receive the powerful working of the Holy Spirit. It’s when we trust him that we allow him to work in and through us to see his will done on the earth. So, let’s allow God’s word to be our guide today as we open our hearts to receiving the courage and faith to place our trust in God.

Psalm 9:10 speaks to the core of trusting in God: “And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” Trusting God is first and foremost a matter of knowing his character and faithfulness. We must know his name, or who he is, and know in our heart of hearts that he will not forsake us. Trusting God starts with a knowledge of his trustworthiness, but must make its way down to the heart. If we don’t allow God’s character and faithfulness to become a transformative reality of our heart, we will never bear the fruit of trust. So in order to begin a lifestyle of trust in areas in which we have taken control for ourselves, we must begin by asking God for a fresh revelation of his character and faithfulness. We must see God for who he is, reflect on his faithfulness as demonstrated in Scripture, in the lives of other believers, and in our own lives, and allow these revelations to transform our hearts’ desires and bear the fruit of trust.

Oftentimes it takes me being at my wit’s end, where there is nothing possible left for me to do, before I pray and ask God for his help. In reality, I should begin every part of my life with surrender to the Holy Spirit’s power and guidance. I should follow God’s leadership from the beginning. Isaiah 26:3-4 says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” My life should be a continual response to the love and faithfulness of God rather than a trial of my own strength ending in cries of desperation to my heavenly Father who longed to help me all along. God’s desire is that we would be a people marked by the peace that only comes from continual trust in response to his trustworthiness. Continual peace comes from continual trust.

Psalm 37:3-5 offers what I believe to be a blueprint for the abundant life God desires for each of us. David writes, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” When we place our trust solely in God we are filled with delight in him in place of the burden and weight of living life in our own strength. And when we delight ourselves fully in God, our desires come into line with his, allowing us to simply “do good” and “dwell in the land.” If we will trust in God he will both fill us with the desires he has for us and then satisfy those desires. When the people of God respond to his faithfulness with trust, he does mighty and incredible works. God delivered the entire nation of Israel through the trust of one man, Moses. He destroyed the walls of Jericho through the faithful marching of his people. He scattered the Midianites in response to the trust of Gideon. He delivered Paul and Silas from prison as they worshipped him in trust. The stories go on and on, but they all have this in common: God spoke his desires to his people, his people trusted him at his word in response to his character and faithfulness, and he did a mighty work in their favor.

Where do you need a powerful work of your heavenly Father today? Where do you need his help and guidance? Spend time meditating on the character and past faithfulness of your heavenly Father and place your trust in him in response to his trustworthiness. Your God loves you and longs to help you. He has a plan to deliver you from whatever comes against you. Just as he destroyed the enemies of his people time and time again, he will help you overcome whatever obstacle stands in your way today. Place your hope and trust in God and follow him as he leads you to a life of victory and freedom.

Guided Prayer:

1. Meditate on the character and faithful works of God.

“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” - Numbers 23:19

“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.” - Nahum 1:7

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” - Hebrews 13:8

2. Reflect on your own life. Where do you need God’s help today? Where do you need his favor or guidance? Where do you need a miracle?

3. Place your trust in God, ask for his help, and follow his leadership. Spend time placing your trust solely in him. If it feels too difficult to trust him completely, ask for his help! Ask him to uncover whatever lie is keeping you from trusting him. Ask him to reveal his nearness, love, and power to you. Trust is meant to be a response, not something you conjure up. Allow him to reveal himself in deeper ways so that you can simply respond to his overwhelming reality, love, power, and faithfulness.

“And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” - Psalm 9:10

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” - Psalm 62:8

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” - Psalm 37:3-5

May you grow in your knowledge of the trustworthiness of your God today. May you experience the joy of having the Creator of all working in the details of your own life. God is not too busy for you today. He doesn’t have better or bigger things planned than your problems. He is infinite, vast, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. He longs to work in the little things along with the big things. Listen to him as he speaks Isaiah 43:1-2 over you today:

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Extended Reading: Psalm 37

Praying Powerful Prayers..... By: Kia Stephens

 Praying Powerful Prayers

By: Kia Stephens

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. - Acts 4:31

When it comes to our prayer life, sometimes we start off passionately praying only to end up with route lifeless prayers or nothing at all. I along with many others have experienced this. The reasons we may have dull prayer lives are vast.

Maintaining fervency in prayer is often difficult to do every day, especially during a challenging season. We may feel as though our words are insufficient and stop short of the ceiling: never making it to God’s ears. At times, we might even feel like our prayers are ineffective because life’s situations seem to remain the same.

Although this is sometimes our reality it doesn’t have to stay this way. Fervent prayer doesn’t rest on what we can do alone but it is impacted by the power of God. When our prayer life seems powerless, we can ask God to make them powerful through the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

We see this in Acts chapter 3 and 4. Peter healed a lame beggar and then he and John taught the people and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. This displeased the priest, captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees so they came up and seized Peter and John and put them in jail until the next day. They threatened them but ultimately let them go because of the crowd.

Once they were released the immediate and collective response of the believers was prayer to God. They acknowledged the sovereignty of God, the plots of mankind, and then asked the Lord to enable His servants to speak His word with great boldness. At a time when they could have been fearful of what might happen to them they boldly prayed to God.

They did not shrink back. These believers chose to pray all the more fervently in the midst of a dangerous time. In Acts, 4:30 they said, “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” The believers moved forward courageously and in Acts 4:31 we see the whole place where they were meeting was shaken.

This illustrates the power of prayer in a physical way. Our prayers have the power to shake the ground of our heart and the circumstances of our lives. Just like the early believers we must trust in God and not doubt.

We must make a conscious decision to pray bold prayers. As we grow closer to God, He, by the power of His Holy Spirit, causes us to pray these types of prayers.

Our prayer life is not meant to solely focus on us and our problems. It is meant to be a global battleground where we lay the foundation for God to work in and through us. If our prayers have grown route and lifeless we can take our cues from the believers in Acts 4.

In doing so we will acknowledge the sovereignty of God, man’s failed plots, and ask the Lord to enable us to speak the word of the living God with great boldness. This will ensure that our faith and our prayer life is anything but dull and boring. Choosing to pray this way might cause us to have the same type of hang-on-by-the-seat-of-your-pants adventures that the early believers experienced.

Dive In..... by Ryan Duncan

 Dive In

by Ryan Duncan

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. - Galatians 5:13

One summer when I was younger, my church organized a week-long camping trip to Glacier National Park for all the high school boys. It was after one particularly long day of hiking that a few of us decided we’d cool off by taking a swim in a nearby lake. So we grabbed our swim trunks and towels and ran full speed into the lake, desperate to escape the summer heat. Now, I’m going to pause here and ask two questions…

First Question: Where does the water in these lakes come from?

Answer: Well, ice from the glacier melts and runs down through the waterfalls until it empties out into the lake.

Second Question: Does the water ever get warm?

Answer: No

The moment our feet hit the water we were stopped cold. We all stood ankle deep trying to figure out what to do next. A handful of the boys tried to edge gradually into the water, but after almost twenty minutes they still hadn’t made it past their knees. As for me and a few other boys, we decided it was best not to wait. We dove headfirst into the water. For a time it was unbelievably cold, but eventually our bodies adjusted and we spent the entire afternoon diving and swimming far out in the lake.

Followers of Christ can encounter the same problem my friends and I had on the beach of that lake. God wants us to dive headfirst into the Christian life, to forget our worries and troubles and just focus on Him. Instead, many of us will stand on the fringes of our faith, trying to slowly and comfortably ease our way into God’s plan for our lives. We aren’t meant to stand in the shallows of God’s love, however, so even though jumping in can be difficult at first, it’s the best way. Only by surrendering to God as the center of our lives do we become truly free.

Intersecting Faith and Life: Have you been avoiding the call to do more with your faith? Consider where and how you can serve, and start at the very next opportunity.

Further Reading

Romans 12:11

A Prayer to Pray against Sin You Can't Shake..... By Chara Donahue

 A Prayer to Pray against Sin You Can't Shake

By Chara Donahue

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. – 2 Corinthians 12:9

You have seen how it steals from your life. You have had others call you on it. You have half-heartedly tried to leave it behind but keep finding it lurking at every doorway. It is your favorite sin. Not that you love it, you may even despise it, but somehow you have yet to shake it. We sometimes settle for calling them vices, weaknesses, or flaws, but Christ has far more in mind for us than captivity. He desires freedom for His people, and giving life to the spiritually dead.

The first step in escaping the tangles of sin is always looking first to the only one who has defeated sin and death out of his deep love for us, Jesus Christ. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8  Sin continuously pulls down all of humanity with its corrosive ways, but those who have had its stain wiped from their hearts have the power to say “No”. The only way for that stain to be lifted is by seeking Christ as Savior, He clothes us in His righteousness and our filthy rags will be no more. When we begin seeking to walk in victory, we first must set our eyes on the one who is eternally victorious.

Let’s pray to our Father now for the strength we need to shake the sin in our lives:

Lord, I confess there is sin in my life I can’t shake. I’ve struggled silently for so along against it. I’ve dismissed it, justified it, tried to convince myself it isn’t as bad as I know it really is. Lord, I know Satan desires me to leave my sin in the dark. I confess it to you, and bring it to light.

Lord, I need your strength to defeat this sin. I am thankful that your power is made perfect in my weakness. I don’t boast in my sin, but boast in you who works in my weakness to make me more like you. I know that I have the opportunity to glorify you by fighting against this sin in my life. Give me wisdom and perspective in the moment I am tempted to sin – help me in that moment see my sin as you see it, and not do the sin my heart longs to do.

Oh Lord – who will save me from this body of death! Thanks be to God! Thank you Lord for rescuing me and saving me from my sinfulness. It is only in your grace that I am saved, and I am so thankful.

In Your Name I pray, Amen!