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“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” Isaiah 55:1
We’ve all heard the old saying. “If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t.” In most of life, the saying is full of truth, unfortunately. The relationship you found is amazing. He/she does everything you ever expected. You pinch yourself and say ‘It’s too good to be true’, and a few weeks later the relationship ends when the real person emerges and you hear the small voice inside say “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t’.
You look for a house where you can raise your family. As you are moving in you fight off the visions of watching your grandchildren swinging from the tree in the backyard. Never mind the fact that you are expecting your first child. Years from now the dream will come true. You are sure of it. Until the promising job you have ends abruptly and you lose the house. As you are moving your young family into a too-small apartment the vision of the back yard swing comes back and you hear the voice, ‘If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.’
Life is full of dreams and hopes and anticipation, but all too often that anticipation turns to discouragement because people, careers, finances and health fails us. We watch television shows about the rich and famous and wonder what it would be like to have all the money in the world. To see something you want and get it without a thought of how it will affect the electric bill at the end of month.
I can give you an idea of what it is like. Not because I’ve ever been there of course. I have little hope of ever being in that lifestyle. But I can tell you based on what I’ve read and heard. The suicide rate and drug use rate and divorce rate is amazingly high for many of those who ‘have it all.’
Perhaps the wealthiest man in all of history put it in his own words. “I had it all,” Solomon said, “I had women, and money and power. If I wanted something, I got it. Know what I found? It couldn’t buy my happiness and contentment. It was meaningless and worthless.” (Read the book of Ecclesiastes for the real story.)
The only source of true fulfillment and contentment is found in our Heavenly Father. The only way to find true and meaningful peace is through the God of creation who promises us that he will take from his wealth and his storehouses to give us all we need to be content.
An unending supply of money will provide you with all your physical needs, but the needs of the heart will only be met through a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He will supply all you need to fill that hole in your soul. And best of all, it’s all free for the asking.
Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for and hope for and expect the Lord! Psalm 31:24 (AMP)
The amount of courage we have is dependent on what we put our hope in.
If I put my hope in my own ability to follow God I’ll be frustrated. I’m weak. I follow my own desires far too often. Selfishness sneaks up on me at the least likely time. I’m full of lust. My past haunts me.
If I put my hope in relationships I’ll be lonely. People fail us. The promise things, but fail to honor that promise. They all too often put demands on me that I can’t fulfill, or if I do fulfill them to the best of my ability, expect more.
If I put my hope in finances I fall short. Too many times that I have way too much month at the end of the money and if I do have the finances to get what I want, it’s often outdated by the end of the week.
Putting hope in religion is demoralizing. Religion puts far more expectations and demands on me than God would ever do. Churches seem to be ivory palaces full of dead man’s bones. Pretty on the outside but full of politics, judgmental attitudes and hypocritical leaders on the inside.
If I put my hope in living healthy, you know, doing the diet thing, exercising, and all the rest, someone else always seems to be trimmer or enjoying life more than I. And I still get sick. Some of the ‘healthiest people I know’ have suffered from debilitating illnesses or accidents that have robbed them of life.
Maybe you have felt some of the feelings listed above. Your strength to go on seems to have left you. Increased effort has only brought increased frustration and feelings of failure. It doesn’t have to be that way.
If we put our hope in God’s hands our frustration turns to a realization that our success has never been dependent on our ability. God has never put much hope in our ability to follow his rules, that’s why he offers me Jesus. That’s why he offers me forgiveness and grace.
He’s never measured our success by the amount of money in our bank account or the number of friends we have on social networking sites. He’s never demanded anything that he doesn’t first give us the ability to follow through on. He knows your heart. He knows your deepest fears. He knows your past and wants to walk with you into the future.
Losing hope? Frustrated? Worried? Tired of losing sleep. Have courage based on a loving forgiving God. Worship and praise him for fact that he has reached down to give you peace through his son Jesus Christ.
PRAYER: Father God, there are many things that scare me today. I have lots of worries; lots of fears; failure seems to follow me wherever I go. Thank you that I can find my hope and rest in you. Help me have courage through your son Jesus Christ. Amen.
You will pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength. Psalm 31:4 (NASB)
One day a Hummingbird got ‘caught’ in our garage. It apparently darted away when we came out of the house and flew into the garage. It couldn’t figure out that if it just flew down a couple feet it could go out the garage door. To rescue the small, frightened animal I took a couple butterfly nets and gently trapped it inside the nets and carried it to safety.
The small, frightened animal couldn’t have known that safety was just a few feet away. It couldn’t have known that the monstrous animals chasing it around its cell were trying to help it. I couldn’t have known that the nets that eventually captured it were meant for good, not evil.
It’s the unknown that scares us most, isn’t it? Like the Hummingbird we can go through life thinking that our safety and protection depends on our own ability to figure things out. But life isn’t predictable, and every net that captures us isn’t for our own good.
Relationships we seek may seem to be safe and fulfilling until the ‘honeymoon is over’ and anger, rage, frustration and abuse set in. Business dealings may seem ‘too good to be true’ and then we find out they were too good to be true and we lose our retirement. Friends and even lovers may pledge their allegiance and later we find out that they are saying things behind our backs, cheating on us or, in some other way, making us out to be the fool. Politicians and bosses make promises to us that turn out to be empty words.
It’s not the nets of entrapment we see that are dangerous, it’s those that are laid in secret that are our biggest threat. Like an animal walking through the forest, unaware of a pit hidden by brush, we fall into situations that catch us off guard. When that happens we end up at the mercy of our captor. The walls are too steep, the darkness to deep for us to find a way out. Desperation, fear and depression join with hopelessness to become our biggest enemies. There’s no way out.
That’s when your Heavenly Father steps in. That’s when God comes to the rescue. There is no pit too deep but that he can’t lift you out. There is no darkness to black but that his light can’t shine through it. The reason you are in the pit you are in is irrelevant. How you got there is of no concern to God, getting you out is his biggest priority.
Whatever pit you find yourself in today, God wants to lift you up. Whatever net has you entangled, he has the power to tear it open and provide your route of escape. You may have spent a lifetime refusing to acknowledge his existence or wandered away from him in the forest. None of that matters. His goal is to free you.
PRAYER: Father God, I’m trapped. The nets the enemy has thrown have hit their mark. The fear and darkness of this pit I’ve dug for myself are too steep. Please rescue me through your love, grace and forgiveness. Amen.
But if Christ lives in you, the Spirit is life for you because you have been put right with God, even though your bodies are going to die because of sin. Romans 8:10 (GNT)
‘Christ lives in you.’
Let those words dwell in your heart for a few minutes. Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God indwells you. Jesus. The one who touched the leper, the blind, the crippled and in so doing restored not only their physical lives but their emotional, social and spiritual health.
Jesus, the one who reached out to the immoral, the rebellious, the confused and by so doing took away the shame and guilt that had plagued them for so long.
Jesus, the one who took a few uneducated, rough individuals and turned them into a mighty team who turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6) with their teaching and miracles.
Jesus, the one who came so you could get to know the Father; who died so you could live; who rose again so you no longer need to be afraid of death.
This same Jesus indwells each of us. What a marvelous fact. No other religion in the world offers us the opportunity for God himself to indwell us like Jesus does.
Just before Jesus left us to sit at the right hand of the Father and intercede for us, he promised us that he would never leave us, never forsake us, never forget about us. His seal, his proof of the covenant between him and us was his Spirit.
In John 14 & 15 Jesus tells us about his Spirit. He calls him a comforter, a counselor, a friend, an advocate who will guide us through the storms, comfort us in the pain, and give us wisdom when we are under attack.
Why is it then, that this body of Christ we call the church has such a hard time with this Spirit of Christ sent to dwell within us? Go into any Christian Church on any given Sunday to talk about Jesus and you will be welcomed with open arms. But speak about the Spirit and people will squirm.
This Spirit you have within you is the Spirit of Jesus! We don’t have any problem knowing how Jesus would act, but we argue about what his Spirit can do in us, through us and for us. Jesus sent us his Spirit so that we could live in unity, power and freedom, yet we often live in discord, weakness and enslaved by legalistic thinking.
The ultimate irony! That which was given to us to empower us has divided us. That which was given to give us peace has brought fear. Let us, as a community of Christ come together and live by the Spirit of Christ that is within us. By so doing our words and actions will show the world the power of a loving Savior who came, not to condemn, but to free us from condemnation.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I thank you for your promised Holy Spirit in my life. I praise you that your Spirit was given so that You could live in me. Forgive us Lord for failing to use the power within us to show the world your love and forgiveness. Empower us with your Spirit so that the world will see you in us. Amen.
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. Hebrews 1:1-2
What do you do when you have important information you want delivered to someone? Historically, the answer to that question would be to tell them, face to face. To announce the message personally would be the clearest, most understandable way. Messengers would be okay, but sometimes the message may be so important you couldn’t trust it to anyone else. In that case you would most likely deliver the message personally to avoid any misunderstanding.
Today of course, the rules have changed. Face to face contact is no longer necessary and can even be impossible. Still you can send a letter (spelled S-N-A-I-L M-A-I-L); you could send an email; make a phone call or text. Today’s technology makes it easy to contact most anyone at any moment.
Still, with all the technology that is out there, the best and most effective way to get your message to people so you are sure they understand is face to face contact. (For me, that is most preferably done at a coffee shop, but you may choose your own poison!
When the creator God of the universe was nearly finished with his creative work, he looked around him and said (to his Son and his Spirit), it’s not enough. I have one more creative work in me, a masterpiece that will be like none other. The angels watched in awe as the Triune God created man and woman. They marveled at the relationship the ensued in the Garden of Eden. God, Adam and Eve, walking hand in hand down the garden path. The humans listening to the love language of their creator.
When sin entered the world through that first couple, everything changed. While God still loved his ultimate creation, mankind, their sin forced him to look away. He longed for that relationship to be restored. He put a plan in place (the Law of Moses) to try to reconcile them, but that didn’t work. He spoke to them through prophets and through nature. God did everything he could to gather our attention to his desire to enjoy the love relationship we once had with him.
The urgency of the message determines the method of delivering the message. The most urgent message is relayed face to face. So that is just what he did. Time was short and his message needed to be heard. So, Creator God sent his very own son, his flesh of flesh so to speak, to send a face to face message to his beloved.
Jesus Christ was sent to deliver Gods’ message of love, forgiveness and grace. The ultimate message of love delivered in the most marvelous of ways. God with us. Emmanuel. Alleluia. When your smart phone has a message for you it says something on the order of ‘you have mail’. Jesus was sent to remind you of the message of love from your Heavenly Father.
PRAYER: Father God. Jehovah God. Daddy. I am so thankful for Jesus. So unworthy of your love, but so glad to receive your message of love, hope and forgiveness through him. Thank you for seeking me out. Thank you for sending the ultimate message of love. Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 