When Things Go Wrong

When things go wrong it doesn't mean that God has forsaken you or doesn't love you or that you are not important to Him. Things can go wrong even if you are doing everything right in your Christian life.

Remember, God did not save us from trouble, but from sin. He did not save the Hebrew Children from the fiery furnace; He saved them in the furnace.

1 Peter 1:6,7 . . . if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we must go through the fire because:

• God is trying to make us sweet
• God is removing those things that are not pleasing to Him
• God is correcting an attitude
• God is teaching us to lean on Him
• God wants to use us to do something special for Him

God promises that you will never have more trouble than you can bear.

True Prayer Is Intimate

Praying is merely talking to God like you would talk to your best friend. Tell Him everything you are thinking or feeling, though He already knows. You can't hide anything from Him. He loves to hear you praise Him for all the good things He has done in your life.

Matthew 21:22 And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Prayer is the divinely appointed way to know God personally and intimately. We are as intimate with God as we choose to be. 

Prayer is an act by which we enter the presence of the God who spake the worlds into being, the God who has lived and will live forever, the God who loves us and who died for us on the cross, and the God who continually meets our needs.

Prayer doesn't change God, it changes us.

If you pray for rain, carry your unbrella.

Who Is This Man, Jesus?

Matthew 21:10,11 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

C.S. Lewis suggests that there are only three possible answers to who Jesus was and is:

You must make your choice. Either this man Jesus was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool: you can spit at him and kill him for a demon: or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with the patronizing nonesense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. 

Jesus is God -- the Messiah, who came to save humanity from their sins. He is the only way to salvation, the only door to heaven, and the only mediator between God and man.

Is Christ your personal Saviour? Why not?

The Spiritual Life From Inside Out

The spiritual life must be lived and nourished from the inside out. However, most believers try to do it from the outside in, trying to fix what's wrong on the outside. But that's backward.

Romans 8:8-9 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

When we try to be like Christ in the energy of the flesh -- to do His work our way -- we actually prevent the very thing we desire. God's work must be done in God's way. God's way is not in human ability or determination. God's way comes by surrendering our will, ability, and determination, and allowing Him to live His life through us.

God doesn't want your best, He wants to give you His best. Let Him.