4GIVEN

Your past don’t define who you are in Christ. The flesh, the world, and the enemy has a way of reminding us of our failures and mistakes. Welp, the devil is a liar. 2 Cor 5:17 declares for those in Christ are brand new in Christ. Look at it this way, when we fail, we fail forward not backwards. The only thing your past can do is remind you of the greatness and vastness of God’s grace. David said, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1-2).No matter what kind of sinner we have been here on Earth, or how often we stumbled and fell, or how disapprovingly we’ve been looked upon by our peers, when we stand before our Creator every hint of our earthly self will have disappeared and we will finally be the perfect example of ourselves He created us to be.

Chief Judge Frank Caprio who resides over traffic court in Providence, Rhode Island is a viral social media sensation. His proceedings stream on the YOUTUBE channel ‘Caught In Providence.’ After watching a few of his proceedings, I dubbed him, ‘ The Judicial Humanitarian.’ In lieu of measuring people solely based on the letter of the law, he measures each defendant based on the spirit of the law. If you look at it from a biblical perspective the OT represents the letter (mercy) and the NT, the spirit (grace). One thing that stands out in the cases I viewed was the accountability and transparency of each of the defendants. [A.) They showed up and B.)They didn’t lie.] Is this not what God wants us to do when we fall short? I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The first thing Adam and Eve did after they introduced sin to all of humanity was hide! I often ponder, what would have happen if they just humbly confessed their transgression before God…..
Caught In Providence

Charles Spurgeon said,”There are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show that they are Christians at all, or else we might mistake them for sinners, their actions are so like those of the ungodly.” The only label I want to wear is forgiven. Romans 3:22-24 made it very clear that our righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe and there is no difference between Jew [chosen] and Gentile [heathen], for everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standards. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. I am grateful for every droplet of Christ’s blood. Joyce Meyers put it this way, “When you make a mistake and the devil comes and tells you ‘You’re no good,’ you don’t have to take on the guilt and condemnation he wants to put on you. No! You can immediately confess your mistake to God, thank Him for forgiving you and cleansing you with the blood of Jesus, and move forward in the victory of His grace and forgiveness.”

Suffering and pain are real. The people affected by tragedies are real people, their pain is real pain, and their tears are real tears. Jesus acknowledges the reality of suffering in (John 16:33). However, God can work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedy. Nowhere does the Bible teach that Christians are exempt from the tribulations and natural disasters that come upon the world. Scripture does teach that the Christian can face tribulation, crisis, calamity, and personal suffering with a supernatural power that is not available to the person outside of Christ. Only God can turn a tragedy into triumph. So remember despite it all that God causes all things to work together for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).

Life can be painful, discouraging, and disappointing. In terms of giving and receiving; sometimes we’re the grantor and other times we are the grantee. In all cases pain has a way of obscuring our sight and when all we can see is our pain, we will fail to see God. The pain we experience is a natural part of living in a fallen, sin-cursed world. In contrast, pain provides each of us an opportunity to either experience the grace of God or to extend grace to others. Therefore, it behooves us to consider what Paul said: “And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). So remember in the midst of the pain we endure God is still present and if we keep our eyes on the Perfecter of our faith we will not grow weary nor lose heart (Heb 12:2-3).

Father God, there are no words to express how filthy we feel every time we break Your heart. The guilt and the shame are overwhelming! Lord, we need Your touch right now. we are so sick of being “born again” and still doing the things we hate doing. Like Paul, we are conflicted. “For we do not do what we want, but do the very thing that we hate.” (Romans 7:15) We are so sorry! Father, we ask for Your forgiveness right now. We are shocked that our life has come to a point where even some sins don’t affect us at all. Father, we have some hard layers on our heart that need peeling. This hardness is a barrier between us that we can’t stand! We love You and we are so regrettably sorry for our selfish actions. Thank You for Your forgiveness, Lord. Without forgiveness we are nothing and with Your forgiveness we are whole again. We praise Your name for great is Your faithfulness despite our faithlessness. In Jesus’ name, Amen!

When was the last time God tried to get your attention? I have heard it said, “Managers light a fire under people; leaders light a fire in people.” The defining difference is simply the approach. Both strategies are intended to provoke change. Fire is often disguised as problems and God uses them to grapple our attention (James 1:2-3), to point us in a new direction (Pr 20:30), correct us (Ps 119:71-72), protect us (Gen 50:20), and perfect us (Rom 5:3-4). Problems are like ‘personal trainers’ and most personal trainers are acutely focused on achieving goals and not comfort. C.S. Lewis put it this way, “If tribulation is a necessary element in redemption, we must anticipate that it will never cease till God sees the world to be either redeemed or no further redeemable.”

The best investment to make is in people. I don’t care how much money you have, how much material assets you possess, nor the number of scholastic degrees you attain. At the end of your life all that stuff will belong to someone else. If you don’t believe me take a tour in a Egyptian exhibit! Here is the biblical skinny, you will exit the same way came to this planet. Naked you came from a mother’s womb, naked you will depart (Job 1:21). Tony Evans interpretation of Luke 16:9 is spot on! He said, “Jesus emphasizes the importance of people. We must see that people are highly valued in God’s economy. God measures our effect on people not by how many dollars we have in the bank, but by how we have bettered the lives of others and influenced them for good.” He also said, “When we stand before Christ, He will review our life from salvation to death. We will see how responsibly we used the time, talents, and treasures God gave us, and we will see the quality of our stewardship for Him. We will see the impact we had on other people and how much we invested in others for eternity.” Therefore, Invest in what truly matters; it’s not about us, it’s about preparing the ones that’s coming behind us! 

How would you respond if you were told that you only had a few days to live? Of course, the scare would be monumentally life changing. My point is that most people will wait to the end of their life to start living their life. Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” So how do we get from living a life of dissatisfaction to living a truly satisfying life? There are so many keys, steps, ways, tips, and advice out there to choose from but which ones are truly beneficial? Well, I don’t believe in ‘life-hacks’ mainly because I believe in divine purpose. However, Charles Stanley said it best, “In all seasons trust God and leave the consequences to Him.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines trust as, “The belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, or effective.” God fits all four of these characteristics. Know this, you can move from #worry to #worship by realizing that trusting ‘in’ God is the only key in understanding every circumstance in your life (Jer 17:7 & 33:3).

We can profit from our pain & suffering because the God of all Grace uses these things to draw us closer to Him and to make us complete in Him (James 1:4). In his book, The Mute Christian Under The Smarting Rod, the Puritan writer Thomas Brookes offers the following observation. “God, who is infinite in wisdom and matchless in goodness, hath ordered our troubles, yea, many troubles to come trooping in upon us on every side. As our mercies, so our crosses seldom come single; they usually come treading one upon the heels of another; they are like April showers, no sooner is one over but another comes. It’s mercy that every affliction is not an execution, every correction not a damnation. The more the afflictions, the more the heart is raised heavenward.” As long as we live in this world, there will be battles. As long as we are here, there will be suffering. However, while our suffering might bring pain and sorrow, they also serve to make us grow in the Lord. Thus, they are a gift, just as 1 Pet. 5:6-7 says they are.
#TheWeavingOfGlory