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Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. Psalm 20:7
There are times in life when you just feel like ‘enough is enough’. People say ‘God will never give us more than we can handle’ but there are times when each of us have looked towards Heaven and said “Really? Isn’t this enough? I can’t take it anymore. Maybe YOU think I can handle this. I don’t’.
The ‘human’ tendency in each of us is to take matters in our own hands. We may not verbalize it to anyone, but deep inside us there’s this voice that says we are on our own. God either doesn’t exist, doesn’t care, or is just too removed from my situation to know what to do.
It’s a normal thing to do and God understands that. After all, He created us in His image. He created us to think on our own and to make decisions based on what we know and not on instinct. So, in the midst of our turmoil we seek our own answers. We may turn to revenge and call it justice. We may attempt so cope with the pain with drugs, alcohol, new relationships or even religious practices. But none of those will work and we find ourselves in the same turmoil.
In Psalm 20 the Psalmist offers up a prayer for those of us who have suffered the wounds of physical, emotional or spiritual abuse. His prayer for us is that in the midst of our darkest hour when anger and hate and revenge seem the only way out, that we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
The Psalmist doesn’t tell us to trust His power or look at His works and trust those. The power is in the name. Horses and chariots were items most people considered to be unbeatable in battle. They were swift and dangerous. While Jesus walked on earth many were healed simply by calling on His name. Life is hard. Tragedies come. People and churches and spiritual leaders fail. Family and friends will hurt you and abandon you in the time of your deepest need. But God is there. He desperately wants to walk with you through whatever life throws at you.
Call on His name. Talk to Him about your hurt. Release the pain and burden into His hands and ask Him to bear your load. That’s what He is there for. He loves you and it doesn’t matter if what you are going through is the result of your own choices or the actions of other people. His concern is about you.
Nothing anyone can do to you, no physical or political or even evil spirits can harm you when you call on the name of the Lord your God. Jesus is waiting to hear from you.
PRAYER: Dear God. I’m calling on you today. The trials and struggles that lay ahead of me seem insurmountable. I’ve been beaten up, battered and bruised. You say to call on you instead of calling on physical things like horses and chariots so I’m doing that. I need to feel Your presence in my life today. Empower me by Your Spirit to trust in you because I’m not sure I can do that on my own. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” 1 Corinthians 15:33
It isn’t good for us to be alone. Even at creation God saw that all was good except for the fact that man was alone. He needed a companion that he could share the good and the bad with. So God created woman to stand at his side as his equal partner in life.
Today the one thing each of us still craves is relationship. We want to belong to something, to someone. We seek a cause that we can believe in and pursue because it makes us feel important. Our self worth gives us identity. It could be through a church, a relationship, a job anything that makes us feel worthy.
Jesus tells us we are to be the salt of the earth. For salt to be useful it must be in contact with the item to be salted. It intermingles, adds flavor and preserves. But salt is always salt. It doesn’t take on the quality of the item salted but enhances the positive aspects of the item salted.
Jesus also warns that salt can lose its ‘saltiness’ and become useless. It breaks down and loses its identity. Rather than maintaining its saltiness it takes on the attributes of the substance surrounding it. The salt no longer enhances the flavor or preserves as it once did.
As Christ-followers we need to be careful when we are in the world. It is too easy to get drawn into the negative attitudes about other people or those who are different than us. In an effort to reach out to those struggling with sin it seems right to downplay the sin in an effort to win the sinner.
Paul tells us in Galatians 6:1 that when we catch someone in sin we are to restore them gently, but the second part of that verse is a warning. We ourselves are in danger of sinning when we put ourselves in situations where temptations to judge, have a critical spirit or allowing pride to overtake us.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church he warned them that constant affiliation with those who were negative, judgmental or lax in their spiritual drive could pull us down. Are we to avoid such people? NO! We need to temper the negative with a strong drive to draw close to Jesus through our personal Bible Study and Prayer and by building a wall of positive influence around us made up of small group and corporate worship and prayer.
When we allow negative thoughts and negative attitudes to influence the way we act or think it robs us of our self esteem, our self identity and the dreams we have. Jesus’ ways are built on love and compassion not on critical spirits and verbal and emotional attacks. As a Christ-follower we are called to built up not tear down, to encourage not berate, to seek the positive in every situation and not dwell on the negative.
PRAYER: Dear Jesus. I get so frustrated by seeing the way in which people abuse each other and seem to take advantage of your love and Forgiveness. To make matters worse I have found my own attitude has become negative and angry with people I disagree with. As a result I am guilty of the very thing that I detest. Forgive me for my judgmental attitude, my critical spirit and my hatred. Empower me with your Spirit to love unconditionally and forgive freely. Help to continue to build a close relationship with you and other believers so that I can live in the freedom you have given me and accomplish all you have in store for my life. Amen.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
Bad habits. It only takes a few days to learn them and sometimes a lifetime to break them. They hound us day and night. They lurk in the shadows waiting for a moment of weakness on our part so they can pounce on us and cause us to fall…once again.
Sometimes the habits are relatively harmless, like chewing your fingernails or leaving the toilet seat up! Sometimes those habits are life crippling addictions that destroy our reputation, steal our character or obliterate our relationships with people we love dearly.
In order to learn to cope with bad habits we label them and categorize them according to our opinion of their severity. Pornography, anger and drug addiction are bad habits. They hurt people, even kill people. Gossip? Worry? Sarcastic, hurtful comments? Now those aren’t so bad. In fact those can even be funny (we think). In reality, in God’s eyes, they are all the same. They are all sin.
The Apostle Paul was struggling with something. We don’t know what it was. Some think it was a physical ailment, an eye problem left over from the Damascus road perhaps. Others think it could have been something else, a spiritual issue. The Bible doesn’t tell us what it was for good reason.
The problem in Paul’s life wasn’t the issue. The issue was how he handled it. God doesn’t want us to know what Paul’s struggle was. He wants us to realize that all of us struggle. Not only do we all struggle, but the struggle we have isn’t as important as what we do with it!
Every day we need to remind ourselves that failure is inevitable in the human life. God knew that when He first created us. That’s what Grace is all about. Grace reminds us that even though we are weak, in God’s eyes we can be strong. Through Grace God can use our weaknesses for His Glory. Every day He uses ordinary, sinful people for great and mighty things.
You may be ready to give up. You may be tired of falling, getting back up and falling again. You may be thinking “I’ll never be able to conquer this”. That’s good! Once we realize we can’t fight the battle on our own God has us right where He wants us. When we feel our weakest He is ready to jump in and use that weakness as strength.
Once we accept the fact that we are weak the power of Jesus Christ will be able to work through us to tackle life’s struggles and to show others the way to Jesus. Let God’s grace turn your weaknesses into powerful weapons for good!
PRAYER; Heavenly Father, I confess to you that I’m often discouraged by my inability to live the way I want to. Like the Apostle Paul I find myself doing the things I don’t want to do and not doing the things I want to do! I hereby confess my weaknesses to you and ask that You use those weaknesses for Your glory. Work through me to rely on you daily. Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 