Eliminate Your Doubts

Have you ever wondered if you are truly loved by God? Perhaps you have wondered if He really cares about you. Maybe you have questioned if He really knows your every thought. It is natural for us to ask questions and have doubts.

How do we dispel our doubts? Being human, our doubts are most often dispelled through experience. Therefore, it is logical that our doubts about God loving us, caring for us, and knowing our thoughts are dispelled by our experience with God.

The apostle John, the one whom Jesus loved, tells us there is another way to know that God loves and cares for us, and He knows us inside out, including our thoughts. He tells us that God gave us His Spirit—the Holy Spirit.

John also says we are encouraged, enticed, nudged, and maybe even given a little push to obey God by the Holy Spirit. This is an encouragement for us. When we experience the nudging, we receive confirmation that God loves and cares for us and He has, in fact, put His Spirit in us.

When we experience the nudging, we have a choice. We can choose to obey or disobey. Our choice doesn’t diminish God’s love for us. However, it may very well change how God deals with us, much like how the parent deals with a disobedient child.

Regardless of our choice, we are assured that God is there—He is with us. As we continue to experience God in our lives, we become more confident God is always there. We learn to trust Him more with each experience. Does this sound familiar? As you observe children with their parents, don’t you see them trust their parents more as they have positive experiences with them? Sure, there is the one off or ten percent that don’t, but the vast majority of them do. Why should we expect anything different when experiencing God?

As we continue to live our lives, it is good for us to reflect on how God has worked in our lives. It is good for us to trust Him more and more as we experience His loving care for us. It is through reflection and acknowledgment of God’s love for us that we grow closer to Him. I encourage each of us to take time to reflect, acknowledge God, and give thanks for His Spirit being with us at all times.

I pray we all recognize our experiences with God. I pray we trust Him more each day. I pray each one of us realize God loves us at all times, even when we make mistakes. Experience God. Trust God. Know that God loves you. Realize His Spirit is in you. Eliminate your doubts.

1 John 3:24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Assess Your Love

We have many false ideas running around in our heads. Some of them are rather harmless. Some may cause us a little trouble. Others are downright dangerous, to the point of negatively affecting our physical, emotional, and especially our spiritual wellbeing. In fact, they can doom us for eternity.

That sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it is the truth. We don’t want to hear it. Many will completely ignore it. We don’t like it, don’t want to give it credence, and go about our lives believing what we want to believe rather than seeking the truth.

I’m sure some of you are wondering what I’m talking about. It is simply this, not everyone who thinks they are doing God’s work will end up spending eternity with Him. It means we cannot earn our way into heaven through deeds.

I know, I know. We are told over and over to do good works. We are told that God wants us to work for Him. That is true. He not only wants us to do good works, He created us for them (Ephesians 2:10). It’s not so much about the works, but our heart.

We must turn our entire lives over to Him. He first wants our hearts and minds to be focused on Him. Once we decide to follow Him with our hearts and minds, the works will come naturally. We will be the good trees bearing good fruit (Matthew 7:17).

Though we hear that we must submit to Him, and it is true, it is not about forcibly submitting ourselves to Him. It is willingly submitting to Him because we love Him, just as He loves us (1 John 4:19). In our love for Him we submit to His desires for our lives.

As we start this new year, we should take some time to take a much deeper look at who God is. We need to examine our hearts and minds. We need to decide if God is truly our number one focus. We need to determine if we truly love God, or just say we do. This should not be done out of fear, but as a seeker of truth and with a desire to make life changing corrections.

God wants all of us to love Him and make Him our priority. God wants to bless each one of us beyond our imagination. God wants us to live for Him and experience heaven now, not just some time in the future. Let’s decide to make Him our priority.

I pray we all take time to assess our love for God. I pray we decide to make God our number one priority. I pray each one of us will focus our hearts and minds on God. Seek God. Make God your top priority. Experience God’s blessings. Turn your heart to Him. Focus your mind on Him.

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

Seek, Knock, Wait

We look for answers in all types of places and from all types of people. Our search is never ending. Questions come to mind every day. Some questions are relatively small and non-impactful. Others are more important and may be life changing.

The more important the question, the larger the impact on us, the more we need to seek our answers from qualified and reliable sources. It may require us to dig deeper in our research to find the best answer.

Many people will use Google or Yahoo to search for answers to questions. We love getting the answer we are looking within a few seconds. But that is the crux of the issue, isn’t it? We want the answer, and we want it now.

I’ll let you in on a secret—those search engines don’t necessarily provide you with the best answer. Many of the links presented are paid for. There are people who do research to build in well-known key words, so their site is high on the list. You may need to dig deeper down the list of results to find the best answer.

The other half of the issue is we want the answer now. There are times we need to not only research, but we also need to spend time thinking. We need to process the information we found. We need to put the information in our own context.

What is the best way for us to put the information in our context? Spend time not only thinking but spend time with God. Spend time praying, asking God to provide the best answer for you. God provides answers to those who seek Him.

Perhaps you doubt God will provide you the answer. Typically, we don’t like nor want to wait for God. Our impatience is profound. Impatience has permeated our culture to the point that we are unwilling to wait more than a few seconds or minute. We want what we want, and we wanted it immediately.

We hear that God works in His time. We agree it is so. Yet we won’t wait with Him. Is it any wonder we find ourselves going down paths that don’t work out for us? We are to put God first in all things. That means waiting for His answers, especially when we have a big decision to make.

I pray we all seek God for answers. I pray we wait patiently for Him to guide us. I pray each one of us will put God’s plan ahead of our own. Seek God. Wait patiently. Put God first. Know the He will provide.

Matthew 7:7-8“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Putting Love Into Action

We hear the word love tossed around quite often. Of course, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, our word love is ambiguous compared to the Greek words used in the New Testament. We use one word to cover three words used by Jesus and his disciples.

Today, we see Jesus switch words depending on who or what He is talking about. When talking about God’s love or our love for Him or each other, He uses agapao. When He talks about remaining in His love, He uses the word agape. Let’s dive a little deeper into His meaning.

Yesterday we defined agapao as involving a deep level of affection or intimacy. We also mentioned that we often simplify it by defining it as unconditional love. Jesus used it not only for loving God, but also for loving our neighbor.

As we look at today’s passage, we see the Father loved Jesus with this type of love and Jesus loved His disciples in the same way. In other words, Jesus acted just like the Father. Jesus uses this definition to state how we are to love one another. Very much like yesterday’s passage.

Agape contains the notion of benevolence or goodwill. It means putting our love into action. To remain in God’s love, we must do something. Acting benevolently toward others means we look to benefit someone rather than gaining a profit. How does our attitude fit into this?

When we look solely to benefitting someone without looking for a profit, we no longer intend to “wash someone’s back in order to get them to wash ours.” We do not look for anything in return. Unfortunately, we don’t see this much in the world today.

Far too often, people are only willing to do something for someone else, if they know they will get something in return. I’ve even seen such attitudes when people are supposedly charitable. They hold it over the other person’s head, or they have a high opinion of themselves. Jesus is telling us it is our duty, not an extracurricular activity. In other words, we are not to hold ourselves in any higher esteem than we would for doing our job (perhaps not as much).

Jesus came to serve others. He came to minister to their needs. To follow His example, we must do the same. We must serve without lording it over others. We are to serve humbly, just as Jesus did. It is our calling from God.

I pray we all willingly serve one another. I pray we serve humbly. I pray each one of us rids ourselves of the attitude of being better than others. Follow Jesus’ example. Obey Jesus’ command. Love one another. Show your love through actions.

John 15:9-13 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Loveeach other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Choose Positive Change

We have all heard at one time or another to put God first. We have heard the two greatest commands as stated by Jesus. Typically, there is a lot of emphasis put on the first one, while the second may or may not get much attention.

Today, I want to take a closer look at the second command—love your neighbor. The word love in this command is the same word used to love God. Why is this important? In the Greek, there are three different words used for love, each with their own definition.

The word used for love is agapao, which involves a deep level of affection or intimacy according to the Lexham Theological Workbook. We often simplify this by saying it is unconditional love. But let’s dig a little deeper into the meaning to understand why we simplify it to mean unconditional.

A deep level of affection is something we might have for family members, especially our children. We love them, even if we don’t always like their behavior or their choices. We help our children when they need it. We are willing to do with less in order to provide them more.

An intimacy may involve the love we have for our spouse. It certainly includes getting to know more about the other person. We have a desire to know all there is to know about them, not as a nosy neighbor, but in order to better care for them.

Another way we might put this is sacrificial love. We give up our desires to meet their needs. We give of ourselves to serve someone not related to us. Sometimes we look at this as service within our community. That is certainly part of it. Yet, we can’t forget the person or family that does live right next door.

If we were to all care for our neighbor in the way we are commanded by Jesus, we would not have the issues in our communities we face today. Sure, there are people who have no desire to help someone else. But that isn’t a reason for us to not help them. Notice, Jesus didsn’t say to love your neighbor only if they love you. He didn’t say serve your neighbor only if they serve you.

Changing the world, making it a better place to live has to start with someone. We are commanded by Jesus to be that starting point. Kindness and caring are as contagious as hate and despair. Let’s be the people who care for one another.

I pray we all decide to love our neighbor. I pray we serve our communities. I pray each of us will take a step toward changing our community for the better. Love God. Love neighbor. Be the positive change. Be the example. Show your love through care and service.

Mark 12:29-31 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Imitating Jesus

As we start a new year, many of us will make resolutions. Some of them will stick while others will fade almost as quickly as they are started. The resolutions that stick are those that we desire most and commit wholeheartedly to.

In some cases, the resolutions that stick are those that are easy. We set the bar low at times, which is not all bad. Sometimes, we simply need to be able to state we accomplished a goal in order to build our self-confidence, which is important.

As followers of Christ, we need self-confidence as well as trust in God. Our human nature needs to trust ourselves just as we trust God. Yet, we cannot allow our self-confidence to overwhelm our trust in God. There is a balance we must achieve to successfully follow Jesus.

Using Jesus as our example, though He was and is God, He did not conduct Himself as high and mighty. He put others ahead of himself. He served others. Not as a waiter, but by addressing their needs. His miracles were not to lord His power over people, but to relieve people of pain and suffering.

We are called to imitate Him. How do we do that? We serve others with a humble attitude. How often have we heard that? Do we know what it means? Have you ever heard it explained? Here is a layman’s explanation.

When we go to give to charities, we are not to do so with a haughty attitude. When we give someone a few dollars to buy lunch, we are not to make them feel less than us. When we provide assistance to someone, we are not do so looking down our noses at them.

I’m willing to bet many, if not nearly all, of us have acted in one of the ways listed above at some time in our lives. After all, we are human, and we will make mistakes. But to truly follow Jesus’ example, we must stop such behavior. Otherwise, we are putting ourselves above God, even if we don’t think we are.

I pray we all look to Jesus to be our example. I pray we serve others with a humble attitude. I pray each one of us make a resolution to be more like Jesus as we start a new year. Be like Jesus. Build self-confidence. Be humble in attitude. Serve others. Start the new year right.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

New Starts

As we begin a new year, many of us will make resolutions. We will decide to make a new start. Our human inclination is to use certain times or dates as milestones. We make promises on specific dates for many different reasons. Some are kept, others are broken.

A new year brings out many new promises. What promises will you make to start this year? How long will you stay with them? There is one promise we all need to make and hold on to dearly, never letting go.

God is due our praise. We hear He has created us and brush that aside. We all know how children come along. Our thoughts immediately go to our moms and dads. So, we brush God’s creation aside. We are foolish for doing so.

God creating us is far more intricate than a woman becoming pregnant. The root of creation goes far deeper. Science teaches us about genetics, but who created genetics at the very beginning? Who created the first string of DNA?

It has taken science thousands of years of study to gain some understanding of DNA. It has taken the creation of intricate technology to assist in that understanding. Yet, scientists still cannot create DNA from nothing. They are now finding out there are even deeper, more intricate components of DNA. And that is just their study of humans.

As we contemplate the creation of all the animals, the earth, the planets, the stars, and everything we see, science has not even begun to explain how it was created. Sure, you can plant seeds, but those seeds come from the plant. There is a big bang theory and the evolution theory, but who or what caused them?

Why should we contemplate creation, both original and daily? It helps us understand where we stand in relation to God. We begin to get a glimpse into just how much greater He is than we are. Our world starts to come into focus. Oh, we are still far from full understanding, but it is a start. It is enough of a start to realize we should praise Him each and every day.

Deciding to praise God today, and every day, is a decision we all should make today. It is a promise worth keeping. If we will keep it, it is a promise that will completely change our lives. Praising God every day will lift us out of the gutter we too often live in.

I pray we all decide to praise God every day. I pray we make a promise and stick to it. I pray each one of us contemplate our place in creation. Praise God. Give Him thanks. Look deeper than the foggy surface. Truly appreciate God.

Psalm 145:1-2

I will exalt you, my God the King;

I will praise your name for ever and ever.

Every day I will praise you

and extol your name for ever and ever.

Living In Fear

Have you ever experienced being in awe? Have you been overwhelmed with a feeling of admiration? Have you experienced fear? Are you in awe of something? Do you have admiration for someone?

Most of us have experienced one or more of these emotions. Our emotions come and go. There are times we admire someone for a season, and it leaves us. We discover something we don’t like about them and no longer admire them.

We may revere someone, holding them in high esteem. Perhaps it is due to their position. Maybe it is their stardom that catches our attention. Or it could be their natural leadership abilities that draw us to them.

There are some actions that put us in awe. A diving catch in the endzone. A perfectly executed dance move. An unreal light show at a concert. Maybe it was the birth of your child. Some things just amaze us and are unlike anything we have seen before.

We have all likely experienced fear in one fashion or another. This is not being scared out of your wits, but closer to being in awe. For instance, the first time you are the top of a rollercoaster, about to take that hundred feet plunge down the tracks. Maybe the first time you go skydiving. It is a mixture of excitement, fear, and awe. There is a pure feeling of being alive, so alive you can feel every nerve in your body, the world slows down, you can hear your heartbeat. This is the type of fear mentioned in today’s passage.

We can be reverent, admire, and be in awe of someone else. There is only One who can make us feel the fear or aliveness mentioned below—God. When we fully recognize Him for who He is, we experience all of it. When our relationship grows close enough to Him, we experience it. Our God has a way of making us feel so alive, we can’t believe it.

We all love that exhilarating experience. We love feeling like we are on top of the mountain surveying the world. We love that tingling feeling. In this world, those feelings are fleeting. However, we have experience them much more often, if we fully turn to God, and we can experience them forever in eternity.

I pray we all fully turn to God. I pray we recognize Him for who He really is. I pray each of us seeks a closer relationship with Him. Be amazed. Be in awe. Give God reverence. Feel truly alive. Feel the exhilaration. Grow closer to God. Seek to know Him fully.

Psalm 128:1-2

Blessed are all who fear the Lord,

who walk in obedience to him.

You will eat the fruit of your labor;

blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Learn To Praise

Have you ever stopped to reflect on what causes you to be happy? Think about what causes you to jump for joy. Are there several reasons that come to mind? What are they? Do they include blessings from God?

We often look for ways to make ourselves happy. We long for something or someone. Our viewpoint is small, typically just of ourselves. Sure, we may look at family from time-to-time, but it’s really about our happiness.

Take a look at today’s passage. Do you see that true joy comes from having learned to acclaim God? What does that mean? It means we praise and give the glory to God. It means we have learned, and now recognize, that all things are from God.

What do we need to happen to us to learn to acclaim God? Unfortunately, for many of us, we need to have something horrible or catastrophic happen. We need to be brought to our knees forcefully. It is quite unfortunate it takes something like that for us to learn. Even then, some of us don’t learn.

Why is it that seems to be the only way we learn? For most of us, it’s due to our individualistic view of the world. I sometimes wonder just how many people are willing to put the greater good ahead of their own personal preferences.

Yet, as we are told in today’s Scripture, if we are willing to put God first, we will rejoice. Does it mean all things are always great? No! It does mean we will experience joy in our life regardless of the circumstances. Who doesn’t want continual joy? Who doesn’t want to feel contentment that it will all work out fine? I suspect we all want that.

A key point to notice in this passage is that we must learn it. We can learn it willingly through reading and experiencing turning it all over to Him. Or we can learn it the hard way, having to be brought to our knees through bad experiences. It really is our choice. In the end, all will fall to their knees to worship God.

I pray we all learn to give God the glory. I pray we come to rejoice in His blessings. I pray each one of us make the choice to turn it all over to God. Learn to praise God. Experience true joy. Rejoice in God. Be righteous in Him.

Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you,

who walk in the light of your presence, Lord.

They rejoice in your name all day long;

they celebrate your righteousness.

Blessing’s For God’s Glory

Why do you want God to bless you? Is it out of selfish ambition? Is it so you can have more? Or is it so that God will be praised? Is it so God’s plan will be executed? Too often it is for our own benefit and not God’s.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as selfish. Yet, if we all take a long hard look inside, we find that many of our reasons for doing one thing or another is for our own gain in the end. We are willing to lend a helping hand in hopes of getting one in return. We give a complement in hopes of getting one in return.

Not everything that everyone does is out of selfish ambition, that is true. But I challenge you to take a serious look at just a few actions as they happen around you and your own actions. Dive deep into the motive behind them. See for yourself what you come up with as a reason.

This isn’t an easy exercise. It takes hard work to challenge yourself like this. It takes opening up your heart to its very core. But if you want to continue to progress toward being the person God has called you to be, it is a worthwhile exercise.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not standing here pointing a finger at you without knowing there are three of my own fingers pointing back me. I only bring this to your attention because I think of it for myself and my own journey toward becoming more like Jesus.

When we ask God to bless us so that His glory is revealed and people praise Him, He works in mighty ways. He wants us to have a change in attitude—one of praise. God wants us to be thankful and praise Him for all that we are blessed with.

I pray we all turn to God for His blessings. I pray we ask for them out of selflessness. I pray each one of us seeks to have an attitude of Jesus. Ask God to bless you. Ask God to bless you for His glory. Be part of God’s plan. Seek to be who God created you to be. Praise God.

Psalm 67

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face shine on us—

so that your ways may be known on earth,

your salvation among all nations.

May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

May the nations be glad and sing for joy,

for you rule the peoples with equity

and guide the nations of the earth.

May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

The land yields its harvest;

God, our God, blesses us.

May God bless us still,

so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.