God's Promises
Special Needs
BEING RIGHT BEFORE GOD
Love never hurts a neighbor, so loving is obeying all the law. Do this because we live in an important time. It is now time for you to wake up from your sleep, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. (Romans 13:10-11)
Now respect the Lord and serve him fully and sincerely serve the Lord. But if you don't want to serve the Lord, you must choose for yourselves today whom you will serve. (Joshua 24:14-15)
Jesus has the power of God, by which he has given us everything we need to live and to serve God. We have these things because we know him. Jesus called us by his glory and goodness. Through these he gave us the very great and precious promises. With these gifts you can share in being like God, and the world will not ruin you with its evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
We are thirsty. Not thirsty for fame, possessions, passion, or romance. We've drunk from those pools. They are salt water in the desert. They don't quench-they kill.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..."
Righteousness. That's it. That's what we are thirsty for. We're thirsty for a clean conscience. We crave a clean slate. We yearn for a fresh start. We pray for a hand which will enter the dark cavern of our world and do for us the one thing we can't do for ourselves-make us right again.
٭ Father, I am a ragged lot, bound together by broken dreams and collapsed promises. By fortunes that were never made and families that were never built. I come to you Father, for only you can make me right again.
FEELING OVERWHELMED BY PROBLEMS
Lord, answer me because your love is so good. Because of your great kindness, turn to me.
Do not hide from me, your servant. I am in trouble. Hurry to help me!
Come near and save me; rescue me from my enemies. (Psalms 69:16-18)
I love the Lord, because he listens to my prayers for help. He paid attention to me, so I will call to him for help as long as I live.
(Psalms 116:1-2)
I have good plans for you, not plans to hurt you. I will give you hope and a good future. Then you will call my name. You will come to me and pray to me and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will search for me. And when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me! (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
God's blessings are dispensed according to the riches of his grace, not according to the depth of our faith. "If we are not faithful, he will still be faithful, because he cannot be false to himself" (2 Tim. 2:13).
Why is that important to know? S you won't get cynical. Look around you. Aren't there more mouths than bread? Aren't there more wounds than physicians? Aren't there more who need the truth than those who tell it?
So what do we do? Throw up your hands and walk away? Tell the world we can't help them?
No, we don't give up. We look up. We trust. We believe. And our optimism is not hollow. Christ has proven worthy. He has shown that he never fails. That's what makes God, God.
٭Father, when I am weak, you are strong. When I have no faith, you have faith. Thank you for being true to me even when I forget you. Thank you for being faithful even when I am not.
IT SEEMS YOUR PRAYERS AREN'T BEING ANSWERED
Ask, and God will give to you. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will open for you. Yes, everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)
Without faith no one can please God. Anyone who comes to God must believe that he is real and that he rewards those who truly want to find him. (Hebrews 11:6)
And this is the boldness we have in God's presence that if we ask God for anything that agrees with what he wants, he hears us. If we know he hears us every time we ask him, we know we have what we ask from him. (I John 5:14-15)
Go back and report to John what you hear and see: "The blind receive sight, the lame walk. and the good news is preached to the poor."
This was Jesus' answer to John's agonized query from the dungeon of doubt: "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"
We don't know how John received Jesus' message but we can imagine. I like to think of a slight smile coming over his lips as he heard what his Master said. For now he understood. It wasn't that Jesus was silent; it was that John had been listening for an answer to his earthly problems, while Jesus was busy resolving his heavenly ones.
That's worth remembering the next time you hear the silence of God.
٭Father, nothing is louder than the silence of our God. But Father, forgive me for the times I've interpreted your silence as a lack of love. Give me patience, for I know you'll answer, Father, if only I'll wait.
STRUGGLING WITH WORLDLINESS
Think only about the things in heaven, not the things on earth. Your old sinful self has died, and your new life is kept with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:2-3)
You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. Anyone who wants to be a friend of he world becomes God's enemy. (James 4:4)
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not is you. These are the ways of the world: wanting to please our sinful selves, wanting the sinful things we see, and being too proud of what we have. None of these come from the Father, but all of them come from the world. The world and everything that people want in it are passing away, but the person who does what God wants lives forever. (I John 2:15-17)
John the Baptist would never get hired today. No church would touch him. He was a public relations disaster. He "wore clothes made form camel's hair, had a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey" (Mark 1:6). Who would want to look at a guy like that every Sunday?
His message was a rough as his dress: a no-nonsense, bare-fisted challenge to repent because God was on his way.
John the Baptist set himself apart for one task, to be a voice of Christ. Everything about John centered on his purpose. His dress. His diet. His actions. His demands.
You don't have to be like the world to have an impact on the world. You don't have to be like the crowd to change the crowd. You don't have to lower yourself down to their level to lift them up to your level. Holiness doesn't seek to be odd. Holiness seeks to be like God.
٭Father, remind me that worship is not what I do on Sunday mornings in a coat and tie, but how I live seven days a week.
STRIVING FOR POWER
Do not fool yourselves. If you think you are wise in this world, you should become a fool so that you can become truly wise, because the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. (I Corinthians 3:18-19)
Where jealousy and selfishness are, there will be confusion and every kind of evil. But the wisdom that comes from God is first of all pure, then peaceful, gentle, and easy to please. This wisdom is always ready to help those who are troubled and to do good for others. It is always fair and honest. (James 3:16-17)
All of you should be very humble with each other. God is against the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Be humble under God's powerful hand so he will lift you up when the right time comes. (I Peter 5:5-6)
The push for power has come to share. And most of us are either pushing or being pushed.
I might point out the difference between a passion for excellence and a passion for power. The desire for excellence is a gift of God, much needed in society. It is characterized by respect for quality and a yearning to use God's gifts in a way that pleases him.
But there is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself. the quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish.
A thousand years from now, will it matter what title the world gave you? No, but it will make a literal hell of a difference whose child you are.
٭Father, I know there is an eternal purpose. The great river of your purpose is moving us toward an eternal home with you. Your purpose is greater than I am, and nothing is going to slow down your purpose for me.
FEELING INSECURE ABOUT YOURSELF
You made my whole being; you formed me in my mother's body.
I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way. What you have done is wonderful. I know this very well. (Psalms 139:13-14)
Two sparrows cost only a penny, but not even one of them can die without your Father's knowing it. God even knows how many hairs are on your head. So don't be afraid. Your are worth much more than many sparrows.(Matthew 10:29-31)
You are God's children whom he loves, so try to be like him. Live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)
Antonio Stradivari was a seventeenth century violin make whose name in its Latin form, Stradivarius, has become synonymous with excellence. He once said that to make a violin less than his best would be to rob God, who could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins with Antonio.
He was right. God could not make Stradivarius violins with Antonio Stradivari. Certain gifts were given to that craftsman that no other violin make possessed.
In the same vein, there are certain things you can do that no one else can. Perhaps its is parenting, or constructing houses, or encouraging the discouraged. There are things that only you can do, and you are alive to do them. In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely.
٭ Father, I belong to your eternal dream. May that thought motivate me. Renew my mind with the immovable fact that I am part of a commissioned people-I have a reason to be alive.
GOD'S PURPOSE FOR YOUR LIFE
The Lord says, "My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher that your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Don't worry and say, "What will be eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" The people who don't know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. The thing you should want most is God's kingdom and doing what God wants. Then all these other things you need will be given to you. (Matthew 6:31-33)
If we are not faithful, he will still be faithful, because he cannot be false to himself. But God's strong foundation continues to stand. These words are written on the seal: "The Lord knows those who belong to him," and "Everyone who wants to belong to the Lord must stop doing wrong." (2 Timothy 2:13, 19)
It's easy to thank God when he does what we want. But God doesn't always do what we want. Ask Job.
His empire collapsed, his children were killed, and what was a healthy body became a rage of boils. From whence came this torrent? Form whence will come any help?
Job goes straight to God and pleads his case. His head hurts. His body hurts. His heart hurts. And God answers. Not with answers but with questions. An ocean of questions.
After several dozen questions Job is left on the beach drenched and wide-eyed, He has gotten the point. What is it?
The point is this: God owes no one anything. No reasons. No explanations. Nothing. If he gave them, we couldn't understand the.
God is God. He knows what he is doing. When you can't trace his hand, trust his heart.
٭Father, you have promised me that regardless of my circumstances, you are in control and you will meet my needs.