Grow Where You Are Planted

The Apostle Paul was put in prison because he dared preach Jesus crucified and resurrected.

Even in prison God used him for His purpose. He had a lot of time on his hands, and he used that time to write many of his Epistles in the Bible.

Proverbs 3:5-6  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

If you are trusting in the Lord with all your heart, God has you where you are because that’s where you will bring Him the most glory. It’s there that He prepares you for assignments down the road. It‘s there that you will grow, be developed, and shaped for His service.

The best thing you can ever do is learn to “grow where you are planted” and become all God saved you to be.

God Is My Everything

Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Every ounce of  strength of the believer comes from the Lord. What can we do without Him? What can we do with him?

God is my “Rock” --- my stability. I can rise above this crazy world when I stand with the Lord and so can you. Standing with the Lord is a place of perfect peace and safety.

The Lord is my shield. Only in Heaven will we fully comprehend the times when God, in His providence,  intervened in our lives and delivered us from some terrible thing that was headed our way.

God is worthy to be worshipped. He’s worthy to be our delight, our dependence, and our devotion. He is worthy to be loved; to be praised; and to be exalted.

This Little Light Of Mine

1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

By the power of grace and the mighty blood of Jesus, the Lord saved us when we believed on Him. He brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Now we are to “walk as children of light”.  How do we do that? We avoid sinful thinking and sinful living. We do it by surrendering our all to the Spirit of God. He will produce within us the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

This isn’t something we should have to be constantly encouraged to do. If we are truly saved, and if we have been truly changed, then holiness should be a way of life for us.  2 Cor. 5:17.

The world needs the light we have to show them. It’s the power of God’s light within us that  highlights the differences between us and the lost world around us. Let your light shine.

Believing The Invisible God

Dozens of great men and women of the Word are listed in Hebrews Chapter 11. These people endured untold tragedy and yet they walked with God. The reason they endured with such glory is that they "saw Him Who is invisible".

Hebrews 11:1-3 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

A person can go through just about anything if they have the Lord with them. Faith will literally allow you to hold in your hand things that have never been seen.

Those who see Jesus ---The Invisible God--- know that the end of their faith justifies the journey.

Facing Your Giants

The Disciples never would’ve known that Jesus could walk on water unless they had faced the storm first. Mary and Martha never would’ve known that Jesus could raise the dead unless Lazarus had died first. You an I will never know what God can do until we first face some giants along the way.

It’s easy to run from your giants. Remember that “greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”. Give your Giants to the Lord and He will help you face them, and that  will help you  grow in the Him and be stronger.

Giants may be large and they may look scary. They may seem more powerful than you, but they can be defeated by the awesome power of Almighty God!

Romans 8:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

Salvation: Working It Out

Philippians 2:12-13 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Believers are challenged to “Work Out” their own salvation. It  doesn’t mean to work to be saved when Jesus comes. Salvation comes by the grace of God.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The people in the Church at Ephasus were already saved. Working out your own salvation means to make your Christian life all it can be for God, and God’s business is serious business. Souls are at stake.  We are entering an unknown. No one knows how much following Jesus  is going to cost  or where it will lead.

But God reveals His will to us and coaxes us to adopt it as our own. We are energized and empowered by God working in us to carry it out.

More Than Conquerors

The religious Sadducees had Peter and other apostles put in prison for preaching about Jesus, but God opened the prison doors, got them out and told them to go to the temple and keep preaching.

Acts 5:29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

The apostles were trusting in the authority of a risen Lord, the One who came out of the tomb alive, having conquered death, hell, and the grave. They served the One who ascended back to the throne of God where He is seated today.

Do you realize what believers have in Jesus? Our work for the Lord isn’t dependent on the frailties of human flesh. We are living for and empowered by the God of heaven. We are more than conquerors in Jesus.