I Timothy 4:7-8

I Timothy 4:7-8 “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

Did you get that? “Train yourself to be godly.” Train yourself.

Godliness isn’t handed to us like a baptismal certificate when we come to faith. It takes effort. It takes persistence. Sometimes it takes hard work. And that effort must be our own.

Our training includes not just listening to the sermon on Sunday but also in challenging it by checking Scripture about the questions the sermon raised. It includes going to Bible studies with homework, like Bible Study Fellowship, and actually doing the homework. It includes getting Bible study books at the Christian book store and doing them during our quiet time at home. It includes journaling as we pray or read the Bible and letting ourselves explore what we see in the Word and what that means in our lives.

Most important, training means taking what we learn and making those lessons in godliness part of our lives.

God has given us so much. He’s given us grace, forgiveness, salvation, peace, a Savior, and the Holy Spirit. Our gift to Him is to put a high enough value on all He’s given us that we pour ourselves into learning who He is and taking on His ways.

What changes do you need to make to improve your training program? May you look to the promise this training holds for both this life and the next as your incentive to get started.

Brenda

Habakkuk 1:2-3

Habakkuk 1
2 How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.

5 “Look at the nations and watch -- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.

6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.

10 They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on -- guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”

I’ve been drawn to the book of Habakkuk ever since I first studied it many years ago in Bible Study Fellowship. Habakkuk’s cry to God could be ours today. In so many ways and it so many places, justice is perverted, people do wrong without being punished, and there seems to be destruction and violence anywhere we look. How long will it be before God deals with the oppressors of our time?

He doesn’t tell us when, but He assures us that it will be done. For Habakkuk, justice would come in the form of the Babylonians, people who were so much worse than the wrongdoers among his own people, and it didn’t seem right to use such wicked people to mete out justice.
But God is sovereign, and he assured Habakkuk that the Babylonians would face justice for their crimes when the time was right for them.

It’s hard, as I look at national and world events, to accept that God tolerates so much sin in our culture, that He allows wanton assaults and murder to go seemingly unchecked. Is it possible God is again using wicked people to judge a nation that once claimed Him as their God? Could He be asking us to wait, in the midst of our doubts and questions, for His will to be completed later? Much later?

When it comes to the heart of the matter, Habakkuk has this to say:

But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. Habakkuk 2:20

If you’re questioning God’s justice and righteousness in the world, bring those doubts to Him. He will accept your questions, just as He accepted Habakkuk’s. But after you raise those doubts, wait for Him to answer you. Remember that He is the Lord, and take time to be silent before Him.

Brenda

Genesis 50:20

Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

One of the missions my church supports is an orphanage in Mexico’s Baja California. For over thirty years the Rancho operated as an oasis of safety and hope for the orphaned and abandoned children of that area.

But four years ago, the local social service agency placed a couple boys with the Rancho without telling Rancho staff the boys were known molesters. Later, when the boys abused some of the other children, the social service agency shut down the Rancho.

During the years of fighting painstakingly slow legal battles in Mexico, the Rancho Board of Directors started looking for ways to minister to the community while they waited to get their property back. They bought some property in town and converted the house into a day care center for the single mothers who had no place to leave their children during work hours. They also started work on a maternity home. And when the local school (which was no more than a couple walls leaning against the side of a restaurant) was destroyed when the restaurant burned down, the Rancho staff and a group of volunteers from a US church built a real school building.
The latest Rancho newsletter tells about the new baby and toddler house they’ve just opened up after years of having no children to care for directly. Five precious little ones who now have the chance for lives filled with love.

If the Rancho hadn’t been shut down as it was, they would have continued caring for their orphans in their oasis separated from the community. But because of the legal battles, the Rancho Board and the churches that support them have had an impact on the community and affected many more lives with the message of Christ than ever would have been possible.

How about you? Has someone done something to thwart you? Do your plans all seem fruitless? Maybe it’s time to stop fighting and start looking around to see how God wants to use you where you are and as you are--in the middle of your challenges. Let Him turn evil plans to His good in your life.

Brenda

Psalm 139:14

Psalm 139:14a “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Recently I attended the Women of Faith conference in my area, and what a couple of the speakers said hit home with me enough that I bought their books. Sheila Walsh’s book, I’m Not Wonder Woman, But God Made Me Wonderful, has questions at the end of each chapter for the reader to think about or journal about or pray about.

In the first chapter, she talks about how much we mean to God and how great His love for us is. I know this already. I believe this already. But one of the questions stopped me in my tracks.

How do you honestly believe God sees you?”

My answer was, “As a disappointment.”

I know He loves me, but I’m a disappointment to myself, and since He knows what I know and then some, how could He not be disappointed too? He’s given me gifts and He’s poured out blessings on me, and I stick so many of them on the shelf to gather dust, because I’m afraid to take chances. I’m afraid of what might happen if I step out, even in faith, into the unknown.
And I picture God in heaven, shaking His head over all the dust collecting on His gifts to me and wondering why He even bothers.

I know that’s not who our God is. I know that. But still I need the reminder sometimes, the reassurance in my heart of what I know in my head.

He longs to gather me in His arms and tell me, “Do not be afraid.” He longs for me to seek His face--first, not as a last resort. He longs to have deep conversations with me that help me remember that He will be with me, even to the end of the age.

How do you honestly believe God sees you? Take your answer to Him, either in praise, or for healing of the wounds that have left you doubting His love for you.

May the Truth set you free.

Brenda

Psalm 33:6, 8-9

Psalm 33:6, 8-9 “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.”

I was talking with a fellow Christian at work, and he said he had just started helping with his church’s first through fifth grade Sunday School program. The memory verse for the next Sunday was Psalm 33:6, and he recited it for me.

It reminded me, as I listened, just how powerful is the Lord our God, and how gentle. He used the soft, silent breath of his mouth to set the stars in the sky. No flashing thunder. No flinging wide His arms. Just His breath to make the stars. Just His word to make the heavens.

In the first chapter of Genesis, when it describes the creation, each of the first five days reveals God saying, “Let there be...” or “Let the land produce….” And each of those ends with, “And it was so.”

But on the sixth day, God said, “Let us make man in our image.” But then it wasn’t so. Instead, “So God created man in his own image.” In Genesis 2:7, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

God is so personal with us. He formed us. He touches us. The very breath of his mouth that He used for making the stars He breathed into us. His desire is to walk with us--or rather for us to walk with Him.

We are to fear Him. We are to revere Him. Is this where you are today? Let your heart wonder anew at who our God is, the majesty of His creation, and most of all His love for you.

Brenda