Sunday, November 20, 2016
Thankful For His Perfect Faithfulness
“Thankful For His Perfect Faithfulness’
By Zach Wood
Isaiah 25:1 NIV
Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have
done wonderful things, things planned long ago.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking
about how faithful God is to me and my family.
I’ve been thinking about how faithful He has been in my personal life
and how He has been faithful with my wife and kids. No matter what seems to be going well,
frustrating us or giving us some stress, He always seems to be faithful. Some how and in some way, He always comes
through to teach me and to teach my family about continuing to trust Him.
Every morning I wake up, I know I have a decision to
make. I can either worry and try to handle
life that day on my own or I can trust in God’s faithfulness to carry me
through, even if I have no idea what He is up to. I know that I should trust in His
faithfulness every single day, but honestly there are so many days that I start
out that way briefly, but then concerns and worries flood my mind and heart and
I worry all day.
Consider these powerful words from Isaiah. He makes a powerful statement. He declares that God is faithful. He says that he will exalt God and praise
Him, because in perfect faithfulness wonderful things have been done for
him. What an amazing statement from
Isaiah! More like a loud praise!
What if we all, when we get up and start our day, begin by
saying these words that Isaiah spoke directly to God? And what if we not only said them, but truly
meant them with all our heart? What if
we continued to repeat them, write them down and place them where we’d see them
often? We need reminded of this. We need reminded that God is perfect in
faithfulness……ALWAYS!
God has been so faithful to remind me every day that He has
things under control and that I need to stop doing things in my own
understanding and the way I think they should be done. He reminds me that I need to let go and let
Him lead. He will continue to do
wonderful things if I just let him lead and stop running ahead of Him.
How about you? Are
you finding yourself believing these words of Isaiah and praising God’s name
from morning till night? Are you letting
Him lead with His perfect faithfulness?
I know we all need to be so much better in truly letting God lead as He
is always faithful.
As we take time to focus on our thankfulness this week,
let’s do more and continue to be thankful every day of our lives for His
continued perfect faithfulness!
Thursday, November 3, 2016
What Are We Holding On To?
“What Are We Holding On To?”
By Zach Wood
Matthew 19:16-22 NIV
Just then a man came
up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal
life?” “Why do you ask me about what is
good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to
enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus
replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you
shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and
mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still
lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want
to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and
you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away
sad, because he had great wealth.
I was thinking about this story the other day while reading
a chapter in a book. I was challenged in
the chapter about how this wealthy man couldn’t let go of his possessions to be
obedient to Christ. As I’ve considered
this story so many times through the years through bible studies and sermons,
I’ve often wondered why he was so selfish and could not let go of these things
he held on to so tightly. He had so much
and yet he turned away and didn’t follow Christ.
As I’ve considered this story more, let’s hold off on
raising our eyebrow at this guy. Most of
us are not wealthy I would guess. I
don’t think many of you own a mansion or have houses in several states or
countries you frequently visit. I’m sure
most of you don’t have to split up your wealth between many banks because you
have so much. However, even though most
of us aren’t wealthy, we are rich indeed.
We have many things.
While we wouldn’t consider ourselves to be like this rich
young man, ironically we are just like him in so many ways! I thought the other day how much I am just
like him. I am not wealthy compared to
people who are loaded with money, but I am rich compared to others who live
with a lot less than I do. As for
possessions, I don’t think I have a lot, but when I look around at things I do
have, I notice that I do have a lot of “things”. These things can easily take away from my
time with God and my allegiance to Him.
I am often times very distracted and finding myself filling time with
other things than focused on Him.
So, before I pass this rich young man off and raise my
eyebrow at him, I need to realize I am so like him in so many ways because
there are things that I find hard to let go of if He asked me to. I want these things in my life and often find
it hard to get away from them to focus on Him.
How about the rest of you?
Do you have things in your life that you’d rather not let go of or get
away from just to have some focused time on God? If you think about it for a while, you will
agree. My question is…..what are we
holding on to?
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