4GIVEN

Why do we often mistake ‘busyness’ for ‘productiveness’? Pastor Adrian Rogers said, “If the devil can’t make you bad, he will make you busy.” Busyness is a tactic the enemy employs to get us off track and to steal our time. For example, you will find yourself having more time for everything except prayer, bible reading, bible meditation, devotional, evangelism, interceding, tithing, attending church, praise, and worship. John 10:10 reminds us the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And, one of our most precious non-replenishing commodities that’s incessantly fleeting and always under fire is our time. If I had a dollar for every time, I heard someone say, “I wish I had more hours in my day!” The enemy loves to distract and inundate Christians with activities that don’t contribute to our spiritual welfare. In Luke 10:38-42, we find Mary at the feet of Jesus, listening to his teaching and conversely Martha running around doing 100 & 1 things around the house. Jesus didn’t rebuke her but he explained to Martha that she was ‘doing the most’ and that perhaps she should be more like Mary and prioritize her time with him and not her chores. Martha’s busyness caused her to separate herself from the Lord, while Mary’s stillness intimately connected her to Christ. There is a reason why we all yearn for peace! Mainly because that’s where true rest, quietness, and joy resides. Don’t allow the enemy to fool you; peace can be found here on Earth, within the very spirit and breath of God that’s lives in you. The only prerequisite to experience it, is for you keep Christ at the center of your life and everything else will fall into its proper place! Question is, what’s on your itinerary today??

It is not a best practice to prejudge a person based on superficial examination! Now, let’s examine the Message Bible Paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 5:16-20, “Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.” Can you imagine what our world would look like if everyone chose to presume innocence and focused on keeping the main thing—the main thing?!

Why is it so important to proclaim victory, healing, and wholeness over our lives? Before I answer that question, let me say this; Christians really need to articulate the difference between the prosperity movement and declaring God’s promises. Church planter Dr. Gary Linton said, “Victory was God’s original plan for mankind, but it was forfeited through the fall, and is restored through the cross. His Word will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent (Isaiah 55:10-11), but we must speak it out, unleash it, and send it out into the world (Matthew 4:1-11).” God has promised and proclaimed victory over every situation and circumstance that we encounter in life. Therefore, we must do the same over our lives and situations, in agreement with Him and His Word (Matthew 18:19). We have got to stop allowing the enemy, doubt, and fear from restraining our tongues! It was God’s wind behind the rock that slayed Goliath but it was David’s initial proclamation of faith and trust in God that secured the victory before the battle begun. David said to Goliath in I Samuel 17:45-47, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the LORD will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! And everyone assembled here will know that the LORD rescues his people, but not with sword and spear. This is the LORD’s battle, and he will give you to us!” Like David; we need to boldly and authoritatively declare, decree, and proclaim victory/vitality over our marriages, families, children, relationships, finances, jobs, ministries, education, and government! “There is power of life and death in our tongue” (Pro 18:21). And, as believers, we need to get serious about using it to articulate life! We need to begin to put our words to work for us like God Himself does. The Bible tells us that He uses words to “Call those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). So today, stand in agreement with God’s word/promises by speaking them out and unleashing them into your current situation and/or circumstance!

I John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. In other words, you should never let the things you desire make you forget what you already have in Christ Jesus! We all need to examine our hearts daily and ask if what we are desiring lines up with God’s heart. If you open your hands and let go of the things you’ve so desperately wanted, you’ll be surprised by the vision God will instill in you. Your worldly wants will begin to shift into Kingdom desires and your heart will experience fulfillment in ways you never knew possible. Psalm 37:4 didn’t instruct you to delight yourself in the world rather it said, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Yes, God will give you the desires of your heart, but the first desire of your heart should be to serve Christ and not yourself. When you have Christ as your Chief desire, all of the worldly desires of your heart will be subordinate to His lordship, and you can willingly pray, ‘Not my will, but Thine will be done.’ When that happens, God will give you what your hearts’ desire, which will also line up with His heart’s desire for you!

It’s hard to let got and let God because we desire to maintain order and civility in our lives at all times. But when problems mount high and pressures feel overwhelming, we begin to understand more fully how little control we really have. In times of turmoil, we often think, so what is God really up to? Well, experience has taught me that whatever He does is always done in light of His glory and for my good! I’ve learned, the only way God can show me He’s in control is to allow situations in my life I can’t control. This is why it’s incumbent on us to, “Cast our burden on the Lord, and He will sustain us; He will never permit the righteous to be moved” (Psalms 55:22). I get it, sometimes the wait is hard and we don’t believe that He can, or wants to, work on our behalf. Unfortunately, we often forget at times, that He is the God of miracles, that He can act “immediately,” that He can do in a moment what might take years for us to work through on our own. Hallelujah, we serve a God that can do all things! No Limits! No boundaries! Therefore, we must press in close, and continue to reach out to the One who is All-powerful, compassionate, loving, and kind. He sees our wounds and the troubles we’ve carried; He knows the pain and worries we’ve felt, He knows how much we’ve tried to let go, and fix things in our own power. So, I encourage you to believe that your situation or circumstance is never too big for the God of the universes to bring healing, deliverance, and freedom. Yes, He is Able, He is in control, and like the scripture says, “He will never let the righteous be shaken!”

I don’t know about you but, I want everything in my life to be as fine as frog hair. However, when I experience thermal turbulence or receive an unpleasant circumstance, I don’t rest until it’s fixed. Those of you that ‘know-know’ me; know that I am dead serious! I am a fixer and a problem solver but when my energy, influence, tenacity, and fortitude fail to find an immediate resolution I become extremely uncomfortable. I have learned, circumstances can easily rule our emotions! But God doesn’t want us to be at the mercy of our emotions, life events or the hopeless perspective we sometimes foster about them. Fact is, we can horizontally rise above our circumstances by viewing them through vertical lens. In Daniel 3:16-17 just before King Nebuchadnezzar was about to throw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a burning furnace, they told the king, “We have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand.” On God, you would think in order for these boys to possess this level of resolve they FaceTime God just before they where summoned! Well, we know that didn’t happen but we do know they made a cognizant decision to trust God despite the consequences. God knows the end from the beginning and vice versa. Therefore, we can trust that He will always take care of us. And when we do, our problems can be seen as non-threaten turbulence on the way to ‘destination peace’!!It’s your choice. No matter the hardship of changing old habits, you can choose to look beyond unwelcome circumstances and leave the consequences to God!

For generations the enemy has confused and dumbfounded folks on the issue of love so much that it’s easy to see the hatred some harbor for others and the contempt they feel for people they don’t even know. Hatred is a poisonous concoction that manifest from the inside out. Hatred produces radioactive carcinogens that eats away at our spirits, hearts, and minds. The Scriptures tell us not to let a “root of bitterness” spring up in our hearts (Hebrews 12:15). Hatred also destroys the personal witness of a Christian because it removes him from fellowship with the Lord and other believers. The cliché “hate the sin, love the sinner” has accumulated its share of criticism in both mainstream American society and within churches. Greg Morse of Desiring God phrased it differently; “We love the sinner by hating his sin.” Morse continued to say, “We hate our own sin, first and foremost, and we take others’ sin seriously because we take their eternal good seriously. We do not wound to cause harm. We wound as the Almighty does: to bind up and heal.” You can’t hate people and love God at the same time! I John 4:20 reminds us that, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” God knew you before you knew you. And He loved you anyway in spite of what He knew about you. As incredibly generous as that sounds, it’s true. It’s called love. God’s point is so simple. If He got love for you, the least you can do is reciprocate that love to others. As it stands, the key to God’s heart is found in the heart of God’s people!

Brokenness over sin is a good thing because it opens the door to repentance (Rom. 2:15). However, brokenness that stem from life’s many disappointments unexpectedly unlocks the doors to discouragement and depression. Often this kind of brokenness leaves a person feeling crushed, worthless, and bitter. The good news is when we allow God to do the mending, He will take those broken pieces and create new blessings! Make no mistake, God is with those who suffer, those beaten down by life and rejected by the world (Psalm 34:18). Fact is, Whether you consider yourself a Christian or not, the beatitudes preached by Jesus in Matt 5:3-12 will encourage your spirit! Yes, Jesus viewed all things in the light of eternity, and so should we: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:2-3). At the end of the day, no matter the severity of the fracture, we will always find purpose and promise in our brokenness when we allow God to do the mending!

The only return you will receive from excessive worrying is case of high blood pressure. It is sometimes a disconcerting truth for many Christians that even though we belong to God through faith in Christ, we still seem to experience the same problems that plagued us before we were saved. The Bible tells us to “Cast our cares on the LORD and He will sustain us; He will never let the righteous fall” (Psalm 55:22), and “Cast all our anxiety on Him because he cares for us” (1 Peter 5:7). The simple transliteration of these two passages of text is God will sustain us, He will never let us fall, and He cares for us. Now, I get it, it’s easier said than practiced because we all become discouraged and bogged down in life’s cares. However, we must continually remind ourselves that in order to experience victory over our pain, God is bigger than all our worries and problems put together. Look at it this way, you survived yesterday, you are alive today, and with God’s help you can face whatever comes your way tomorrow! We serve a big God that can do big things because nothing is impossible for Him. So, today, take one step at a time, pray for God’s Word to guide you, read or listen to God’s Word, and meditate on God’s Word. When problems, worries, and anxieties of life becomes too heavy to carry remember Jesus said in Matt 11:29, “Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Don’t allow worldly circumstances to compromise Godly contentment. In a lonely dingy prison cell Paul penned these words to encourage the Christians in Philippi, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” Notice that he didn’t say, “I’ve heard that in ….” rather, he said, “I’ve learned that in..” Paul’s beliefs about godly contentment were not merely a doctrinal or propositional type of knowledge. Rather, through experience, he had learned to be a practitioner of contentment. So how do we exhibit this practice in our everyday lives? Here are three very simply action steps to consider: 1.) During times of testing cast your anchor in Heaven and find your strength identified in Christ (Matt 6:19-20). 2.) Thank God for then blessings you already have (Ps 107:1). 3.) Believe that God will make good on what the enemy made bad (Gen 50:20). Exercising godly contentment enables us to live out our Christian duty to demonstrate the work of God’s spirit ‘in us’ so that the world may see the transforming power of our God ‘through us’!