The Faith Perspective

The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior . . . Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you? Judges 6:12, 14

God’s perspective is different from our perspective. When God sent an angel to call Gideon to save Israel from oppression, Gideon saw only his own weakness. Like Gideon, we often see ourselves through our limited viewpoint. Instead, we should look into the mirror of the Word to see ourselves as God sees us.

Getting Back to Your First Love

I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance . . . You have patiently suffered for me without quitting. But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. Revelation 2:2-5 NLT

This warning to the church in Ephesus is sobering, and the enemy is fighting hard to dull you, but God knows how to rouse your heart and stir you up to the fiery potential for which you’ve been designed and created.

Keep Hope Alive

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

Meditating on a verse like this will pull you out of regret for the past and dread of the future and it’ll make you aware that the future God has planned for you is a future with hope.

I Am Convinced

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” is the important question. Paul was convinced, and now it’s crucial that we become convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love.

New Beginnings

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1

The Genesis revelation—that the creation of this world was not a random accident but was initiated by the eternal God—reveals an origin of value, purpose, hope, and endless possibilities. God made us in His image and He has designed Kingdom purposes for each one of us.

Happy New Year!

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. Galatians 6:9

I’m dedicating the month of January to prayer and fasting as we seek God about the next steps for the church and our personal lives. God has some significant things up ahead. Let’s increase our Word intake and sensitize ourselves to the Holy Spirit so we’ll be ready to walk out His plan in 2010.

God Loves You

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16

God loves you! When you know you’re loved, you are free to spend life loving and valuing others. If you catch yourself being bitter, you have probably been giving until your tank is empty and trying to operate out of your own strength instead of relying on God. Take some time to meditate on God’s love for you and watch your attitude turn around!

God With Us

On that day, when evening came, He [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. Mark 4:35-39

This journey to the “other side” paints a picture of our lives. Between the initiation and the conclusion of life’s journey, there is this thing called the daily grind, and sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of some stormy weather.

The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God. 1 John 3:1a

You’ll become frustrated trying to walk in love if you don’t understand that we love because God first loved us. We can only truly walk in love as it flows out of our understanding of God’s love for us.

Turn Your Eyes On Jesus

For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
Romans 4:3

I met a modern day prospector on the beaches of California. He had a metal detector and a fanny pack full of his precious-metal findings. Fascinated, I asked him, “What did you find?” He excitedly began to show me his treasure of gold rings, watches, and old coins.

Say The Word: Love

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31

Because of the distractions of life, we must daily choose to make our relationship with God the central focus of our lives. Our love for self and neighbor will flow directly from our relationship with God.

Growing In Love

Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5

God’s love does not originate from our niceness—it’s been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit! Our first increase of love needs to be toward God. We can start well in our love walk and then drift if we aren’t connected to the source.

It's Never Too Late In God

Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. Romans 4:20-21

Even though Abraham was beyond what seemed like the proper time for the fulfillment of God’s promise to make him a father of many nations, Abraham remained “fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21). That God is our God!

God’s Love

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11

Without agape—the God kind of love—all other loves fall short. God’s love is different from natural human love; it’s supernatural and changes a person. Agape love is value: looking at a person and realizing that is someone for whom Christ died.

It's God's Battle

Thus says the Lord to you, “Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.” 2 Chronicles 20:15b

Are we ever going to learn that last line? How often do we try to take the battle back into our own hands! Our God is a warrior and has a plan for this whole universe. He knows more about the future than we do about the past, and He is worthy of our trust.

The God Of Hope

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

The God of hope has solutions to your problems. I’ve walked into situations that did not look solvable. But after I had prayed and sought the God who is able, wisdom poured out and sufficiency came. God is able to do even more than we can think or imagine, so don’t limit God’s ability to provide an answer for the most impossible situations (Ephesians 3:20).

Love: The Effective Life

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

God has called us to an effective, significant life, and in order to fulfill this call we need love. Without love, our actions become white noise (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

A Renewed Life

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18

The value of something is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it. The world evaluates worth based on appearance, performance, and status. But God doesn’t make superficial evaluations. Whether you are doing great or not so great, He absolutely loves you. You are worthy because of the blood of Jesus that reconciled you to God!

Pray About Everything

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:26-28

We are called to a dynamic life of prayer, but not alone: we have the advantage of the Holy Spirit’s help. Prayer is going before the Lord with the authority He’s delegated to us and exerting that influence by the power of the name of Jesus to impact the world we live in. Great social changes are attributed to believers who prayed.

Ready, Set, Go!

Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19

The difference between conviction and condemnation is that conviction moves you forward and condemnation gets you stuck and moving backward. While the devil condemns, God will convict us for our own good—to get us prepared for the next steps.

Compelled By Love

Do not give the devil an opportunity. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Eph. 4:27, 31-32

Love, conforming to the image of Christ and valuing people, produces an atmosphere charged with potential. If we let ourselves become bitter instead of living this Christian life to the fullest, we are of no good to those who desperately need help.

Remove The Obstacles

Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you. Hosea 10:12

Preparation precedes opportunity (Matthew 3:3). God is telling us to get our hearts ready for what is up ahead. We need to remove every obstacle in our path in preparation for a greater level of spiritual growth.

God’s Stimulus Plan

The effective heartfelt prayer of a righteous man will accomplish a lot (James 5:16b). As we approach the fall season, I want to give you some focus prayer points for these next 60-90 days.

A Generation Awakened

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 1 Corinthians 2:12-13

Jesus did not leave us to our own devices. God sent us a Helper, the wonderful Holy Spirit, to help with all the details of our lives (John 15:26; 16:13).

Anointed For Today

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 1 Corinthians 2:12-13

An advantage of giving your life to Jesus is that you’ve been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth and equip you for every good work so you can see biblical results modeled in your 21st-century life.