Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Comfort Like No Other
“Comfort Like No Other”
By Zach Wood
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
“Praise be to the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of
all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those
in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
One of the greatest things about living a life for God is
that we can hold onto a true hope when we are going through rough times. There is no human being in this world that
hasn’t experience some kind of difficult time in their life. No one is exempt from disappointment,
frustration, hurt, or heartache. As much
as we do not like to experience these times in our life, it is in these times
that God does some of the greatest stretching of our faith.
It is amazing to know that God is our complete source of
comfort in all times of trouble in life.
Whether or not we understand what we are going through, and many times
we do not, God is always there to give us comfort and peace. I could not imagine my life without the
comfort that God gives through the hard times.
Whether it is a time that I am hurting, a family member or friend is
hurting, or when I am trying to comfort someone else in pain, I know that God
is there and will show His love and comfort.
It is not only amazing that God gives us His comfort, but
also He uses us to extend that comfort to someone else who is experiencing the
same pain. I love how God works in that
way. What better way to comfort someone
else than to share the personal experience we have had with the same pain?
Paul sure knew what it meant to experience pain and
sorrow. He experienced more than most of
us will ever have to go through and endure.
Through it all, he learned to rely on God for complete comfort and he
extended his compassion upon others who also experienced hard times.
Let us always be thankful to God for His comfort through all
the hard times of life. Then, let us
look for ways we can extend that comfort to others who have experience or are
experiencing the same hardships and relate with them.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
A Passion To Share
“A Passion To Share”
By Zach Wood
Acts 20:24 (NLT)
“But my life is worth
nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord
Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.”
Paul is one of my favorite characters in Scripture. Not just because of the passion he had for
sharing the Gospel, but also because of the transformation that happened in his
life from being a persecutor and murderer of Christians. It is absolutely amazing what God can do with
a life and how He can transform someone.
Then, to watch the person build a passion in his or her life to do
amazing things for the Kingdom.
Paul not only had passion, but he was willing to do anything
and everything possible to make sure the Gospel message was spread. He did not care what threats came to him or
what all he had to go through to get this accomplished. He was passionate, dedicated and determined. He was one bold man! With all the accomplishments Paul could
thrive on, he made it very clear that his life was worth nothing if He was not
completing the work of Christ. That’s a
bold statement!
I cannot help but wonder why, in the church today, we don’t
have the passion that Paul did? What
keeps us from not only being so passionate, but also having no other desire
other than to make Christ known to the world?
Why do we care about so many other things that are really not important,
but then focus so little sometimes on getting His Word out?
My hope and prayer for us, as Christians bonded together in
unity as the Church, is that we develop a pure passion for Christ and a mission
in our hearts to share His love and that nothing else will matter to us. There is no greater message we can spread, as
the Church, than to share the Good News about our wonderful and awesome God.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Never-Ending Consistency
“Never-Ending Consistency”
By Zach Wood
Hebrews 13:8
“Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday, today and forever.”
One of the most simple verses in the Bible to understand,
yet it’s one of the most important messages we could ever remember. So many things change in life, every single
day. And…..throughout the day! We are surrounded by constant change in
life. It almost seems like nothing really
is consistent, except for the consistency of constantly changing. Everywhere we turn, there’s some new
technology coming out or some new law being put into effect or something else
happening.
It’s not a surprise to any of us that we live in a
constantly changing world. It’s hard to
rely on anything and hard to rely on anyone sometimes. While people do have good intentions at
heart, they are fickle and sometimes surprise us with change.
With all the change going on around every day, I am reminded
today to be thankful that Jesus never changes.
His love for me is constant and full each and every day. He loves you as well and that will never
change. He is someone we can depend on,
no matter what else in life seems to be falling apart or changing
constantly. Sometimes, we just need to
stop what we’re doing, sit down and take in the fact that Christ is always
there for us and His love will never change.
We cannot do anything to make Him love us more or love us
less. He is all that we need and we can
rely on Him when nothing else makes sense to us. It is amazing to know that we have a Savior
that we can fully trust to carry us through life and be there when it seems
nothing else in life is going right.
And, when life does seem to be going well, He still there and still
loves us just as much. We can always
rely on Him, never-changing and always by our side.
He is the same yesterday, today and forever! Amen!
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
From Worry To Peace
“From Worry To Peace”
By Zach Wood
Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT)
"Don’t worry
about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and
thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which
exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds
as you live in Christ Jesus."
If there is one thing we are all good at, it is
worrying. We all have varying degrees of
how much we worry, but every human being worries at one time or another. No one is excluded from this problem. As much as Jesus told us not to worry, we
still find it necessary, for some reason, to continue worrying and dwelling on
things that haven’t happened yet or might happen.
You know what really feels wonderful? When we finally give our worries over to God,
let Him be in complete control and experience peace. There’s nothing else like the peace of God
surging through your body and taking away the worries. When we focus each day on letting God be in
control and not focus on our minds so much on the things of the day, there’s an
unexplainable peace that fills us.
The first line of this passage is very important. Paul says not to worry about anything, but to
pray about everything. I am ashamed that
I have a past of being a worry-wart. I
don’t try to be, but it’s in my blood somehow and I have to daily put my trust
in God and let Him be in control so that I don’t make my blood pressure
sky-rocket! I often let worry consume me
and focus on things that haven’t even happened.
I’m also ashamed that I often find myself not focusing on
praying through things. I encourage
others to pray, but so often I myself fail at being faithful in my prayers life
about things I’m worrying about. I’m
sure many of you, if not most, struggle with this exact same problem. When we finally let go of worrying and pray
that God will fill us and guide us, we feel a peace that we cannot
explain. The worries of the world then
seem to fade from our minds and hearts.
If we want to experience true peace from God, then we need
to let go of the worries we have and let Him be in control, every day, all
day. It is indeed hard to do, but it’s
possible only through God.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Do We Really Follow?
“Do We Really Follow?”
By Zach Wood
John 8:31-32
“To the Jews who had
believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my
disciples. Then you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.’”
It’s really easy for any of us to do something in our lives
and think we are good at it. We often
try new things or get into a new hobby or other activity and think we do a
pretty good job. Maybe at our work we get
into doing a new project and we consider ourselves to be doing a pretty decent
job and we feel good about. While it’s
great to feel good about a job well done no matter what we are doing, it’s
still important to make sure we are actually doing things correctly.
It’s quite easy for us to go along through life and think we
are doing things correctly and quite well.
Sometimes, a manager or supervisor at a job or a friend or family member
needs to stop us and show us how to really do things right. We’re often taken off guard when we realize
we haven’t really been doing things right and need to shift gears and do things
another way. It’s not that we desired to
do things wrong, but we thought we had a pretty good idea how to do them.
Sadly, this happens a lot in our walk with God. We often go through life doing things we feel
are worthy of Jesus and His teachings, but really we are just doing what we
think is right. It’s easy to go through
each day of life and “think” we are doing things right, when many times we may
not be. We must constantly be in God’s
Word and seeking His direction through the day so that we know we are in step
with Him. We can say we are true
followers, but if we’re just doing what we think may be right and what we like
to do, that doesn’t mean we are truly following Him.
Jesus says if we truly hold to His teaching, then we are
really His disciples. We cannot just
think we are doing life right and go on our merry little ways. We usually have great intentions, but if we
are not truly seeking to follow Christ and checking His Word to make sure we
are following, then we need to reexamine our ways. When we choose to study His Word daily and
pray for guidance, then we will know the truth more and that truth will surely
set us free.
We cannot just think we know what is right to be doing, we
must be in sync with His Word so that we know what we are doing is from His
teaching.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Loving Others
“Loving Others”
By Zach Wood
1 John 4:13-16
“We know that we live
in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father
has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him
and he in God. And so we know and rely
on the love God has for us. God is
love. Whoever lives in love lives in
God, and God in him.”
Does it seem to be easy to love others when we enjoy being
around them? Does it seem easy to love
others when we get along with them and don’t argue? Of course it does. When our kids are behaving and using great
manners, it puts a smile on our face.
When we are around family and friends who we really enjoy being with,
loving seems to come naturally.
How about when we are around others who seem to be nothing
but difficult for us? How about when we
are around our kids or other’s kids who do nothing but whine, complain and
throw fits? How about when we work right
beside someone all day long who does nothing but use foul language?
How do we feel about loving others when we are around these
people and others that are challenging to be with? Of course loving others with God’s love is so
much easier when we are around those who don’t present a challenge to
love. We sure want things easy, don’t
we? We want things to be the easy way so
much. However, we often forget that God
wants to work through others who are difficult to build our character and to
teach us to love deeper.
How could we possibly grow in loving others if we are always
around those whom are easy to show love?
We would not grow. God’s love is
definitely beyond our love. However, we
can still strive to show His love, even though we will be imperfect many
times. We must make an effort to be
sincere in our love for others, especially when other people seem to be more
difficult.
What we must always remember when we deal with difficult
people is that we are also difficult to deal for others to deal with as
well. As much as we sometimes want to
focus on how others are toward us, we are the same way. God’s love needs to be lived through us,
always. No matter how difficult others
are, God wants to strengthen our hearts so that we learn to love regardless of
how we are treated.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Listening Is Not Enough
“Listening Is Not Enough”
By Zach Wood
James 1:22-25
“Do not merely listen
to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says. Anyone who
listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his
face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately
forgets what he looks like. But the man
who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do
this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what
he does.”
Being a parent has been one of the most challenging things
for me to deal with over the past eight years.
I absolutely love being a dad, but as any parent would claim and admit
to, it has its very frustrating and challenging times. No parent can escape this. While we love our kids and would do anything
for them, there are very challenging times, especially when they don’t
listen. It creates frustration to try to
do the best parenting and not say or do something we will regret later.
No matter how many times I have issues with my kids not
listening, God always uses those situations to remind me that I often struggle
with listening. There are so many times
I have problems listening to Him. When I
notice how my kids don’t listen, it’s often a great reminder God uses to show
me how I don’t listen to Him often. It’s
painful to realize this, but this pain often helps me to grow and to be
reminded how I need to listen to Him more.
However, listening is only part of the battle. Listening is great and we all need to be
better and improve on this area in our lives, but it’s only part of what we
need to do. After we listen, then we
need to do what we’re told to do. We
cannot just do things halfway and think we’ve done well. Again, while listening is great and
understanding what we’ve heard is wonderful, then we need to put into practice
what we’ve heard.
I appreciate how James explains that listening and not doing
is pretty much worthless. If all we do
is listen and not put anything we’ve heard into practice, it’s about as useless
as looking into a mirror and then forgetting what we look like. God gives us commands and instructions for us
to obey and put into practice. If we
don’t, we are not being obedient to Him.
We must break this “halfway” problem and do more than just listen. We must do what we’ve been told to do.
Just as we want our kids to do more than listen to us, we
also must listen and do what God has told us to do.
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