A Dose of Encouragement

by | Mar 4, 2016 | Uncategorized

Could you use some encouragement today?

I know I could. Sometimes my heart grows anxious. It’s easy to give way to fear, to let the “what if’s” take over. To look at our nation, our world, and feel as if things are spiraling out of control.

Yet, in the midst of turbulent times and an uncertain future, the words of the old hymn ring true in my heart – “When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the Solid Rock I stand…” *

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This Rock that is Jesus – He is secure and unchanging, a foundation that will never crumble. His love is everlasting. His truth still brings freedom. His justice is as sure as the rising sun. His faithfulness will never, ever cease. Come what may, God is good. God is with us. And God will complete His work in us.

This week I’ve been studying in Colossians. My heart thrills at the work of God on our behalf. Here are some highlights from chapter two:

  • God has revealed to us the mystery of Christ (v 2). Walking with God has always been by faith – from the opening chapters of Genesis (the promise of One who would crush the serpent), to the final words of Revelation (“come quickly, Lord Jesus!”). Yet the Object of our faith was a mystery until God made Him known. Oh, the riches of assurance and knowledge of Him!
  • God has firmly rooted us in Christ (v 7). It’s done, once and for all – by God, for us. Because we are rooted in Him, we can face the future with confidence. Nothing can uproot us from Christ!

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  • God is building us up and establishing us in our faith (v 7). God is continuously, repeatedly working to strengthen us.
  • God has made us complete (v 10). As the fullness of God dwells in the Person of Christ, so we are completely filled with Christ. We lack nothing when we have Jesus.
  • God has circumcised our hearts (v 11). In Old Testament times, God commanded Israel to circumcise their hearts (Jer 4:4), but they were incapable of doing it themselves. However, He promised that one day, He Himself would complete this work. (“Then the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him…” Deut 30:6.) And now He has done it! (“Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ” (Col 2:11b). What we are powerless to do on our own, God has done for us. The power of our old life is broken!
  • God has cancelled our certificate of condemnation, nailing it to the cross (v 14). All those sins that separated us from God, which served as evidence of our guilt – they are all gone! Not a single sin stands to condemn us. We are fully forgiven in Christ.
  • God brings about our spiritual growth (v 19). Fruit-bearing is God’s work (thus the term “fruit of the Spirit”). For most of my life, I believed I had to try hard to produce fruit as a Christian. In reality, I’m just the branch displaying the fruit made by the Vine as I abide in Him (Jn 15:1-11)!

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My dear fellow Jesus-lover – be encouraged! Rest in hope. Speak truth to your soul.

Nothing can sever us from the God who works on our behalf – no politician, no tragedy, no loss, no disappointment. If He has done all this for us (and ever so much more), will He not continue to show Himself strong on our behalf? We He not daily support, strengthen, sustain, and supply?

May we overflow with gratitude, walk closely with Him, and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

“For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His…” 2 Chron 16:9a.

“I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them…I will rejoice in doing them good…” Jer 32:40-41.

What kind of soul-talk brings peace to your heart? Is there a particular attribute of God that especially gives you hope?

 

Related Posts:

Fly Like an Eagle

When Fear Invades

 

*The Solid Rock, by Edward Mote

 

When the Silence Speaks

by | May 17, 2015 | Uncategorized

Today was a rare occasion – I was silent for most of the day.

I can’t remember the last time I sat in quiet meditation as I soaked in my surroundings. I had forgotten how much the soul needs silence. The noise of daily life, it gets so deafening. Oh, how we need to make room for rest!

I’m in the mountains, sitting in a prayer garden right now – a meandering stream bubbling behind me, birds chirping out their Creator’s praise from the trees, a light breeze tickling the leaves above me. It’s beautiful. Cool and fresh and revitalizing. Not so hard to be silent here.

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Do you ever feel like you’re not…enough? There’s not enough you to accomplish all that should be done? You haven’t done enough? You aren’t good enough? You just don’t measure up?

I do. I think I carry that sense, that label I’ve given myself, everywhere I go. It’s always there, subtle and often unrecognizable, but constant nonetheless. Even now, as I’m coming out of perfectionism and into a deeper realization of grace, it’s still there.

Today as I’ve sat in silence, worshipped without speaking, and communed with God in my heart, I have heard His still small voice.

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He reminded me that I don’t have to be enough. I am loved.  Infinitely loved. Passionately loved. Emotionally loved. Unconditionally loved. Relentlessly loved. Joyfully loved. Graciously loved. I am fully accepted by God on the grounds of Jesus’ righteousness. He is enough. I am in Him, and that is enough.

He needs nothing from me. Or you. Does that strike a blow to pride, or what! He doesn’t need my worship, as if He were insecurely egocentrical. He doesn’t need my service, as if He were incompetent on His own. He doesn’t need my witness, as if He doesn’t testify of Himself contstantly through His Word and in all of creation.  He doesn’t need me to be better, as if I could improve myself for Him. He doesn’t need my fellowship, as if He were not fully satisfied within His Triune Self. He doesn’t need me.

Oh, but He wants me. And He wants you. Not for what we can do for Him, but “that He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7).

He wants to make examples of us – examples of people who are recipients of unheard of grace.

He wants to relate to us – that is the crux of Christianity, after all. Not doing, but relating. All our doing should be a mere overflow of our relating to Him. Walking with Him, communing with Him, responding to Him. That is genuine Christianity.

I found this prayer garden while on a walk with God this afternoon.

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I had thought maybe God would say something profound, something new, during my alone time with Him. But He didn’t. He just reminded me that sometimes I don’t need something more or something new. I just need to be near Him. Walking in silence, aware of His presence, seeing His grace reflected everywhere around me – that is good.

He is not concerned about productivity. He is involved in transformation. And that takes place in His presence – during cultivated, set aside time with Him, and in walking through the dailyness of life with Him. Transforming Christianity is all about Jesus – by Him, for Him, through Him and to Him.

How do you make room for silence in your “everydayness”? What whisperings of God’s Spirit have you heard in times of quiet with Him?