Promise for Today - To be Different

This is the account of Noah and his descendants. Noah had God's approval and was a man of integrity among the people of his time. He walked with God. 

Genesis 6:9 (GW)

You can't fit in with culture and fit in with God's plan for your life.

Noah did something significant with his life despite his culture, not because of it. He knew the culture’s temptation to distract him from God's purpose for his life. Our world is living for fun, comfort, and entertainment. You can't live for those things and live for God. You can’t judge your success by your possessions, pleasures, or profits. You can't focus on pleasing people and doing what God has called you to do with your life.

In Noah's day, humans had hit bottom morally. Genesis 6:11-12 says, “The world was corrupt in God's sight and full of violence . . . all people on earth lived evil lives” (GW). God saw how broken the world had become, with people turning more and more toward evil. It broke God’s heart. But even then, Noah stood out. When God made the earth, he said it was good, but it didn’t stay that way. Sound familiar? Our culture today is moving toward incivility, much like it did in Noah’s day.

The one bright spot in Genesis 6 was Noah. Verse 8 says God was pleased with Noah, which means Noah was different. All of culture was headed in the wrong direction, but Noah was moving toward righteousness as he followed God. He was living counterculturally.

It's not important to be on the right side of a trend. What’s important is doing what is right. If you're going to be all that God created you to be and fulfill the purpose he created you for, then you must be willing to be different.

Do you want to make a difference in this world? Do you want to make a difference in your family, in your community, in your school, or in your business? Noah fulfilled his destiny by ignoring cultural distractions and refusing to follow the crowd.

You can only make a difference by being different.
- written by Pastor Rick

Talk It Over

What are some specific ways you will go against culture if you follow God in your work or school or family?

How can you know if something pleases God or just goes along with culture?

Who can encourage you to reject the waves of culture when they go against God’s Word? Who can you encourage in this way? Why do we need each other to follow Jesus faithfully?
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Prayer

Father, 

          Give us Your wisdom and strength to live counterculturally. Help us to stay focused and keep our eyes, hearts, and thoughts on what we can do to live pleasing to You. Continue to cross our life paths with those who encourage us to reject the unrighteous ways, and give us divine appointments so we may encourage others to follow You. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Promise for Today - It's Okay to Be Different

Guest post - from "The Power of Being Thankful" by Joyce Meyer
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The sun is glorious in one way, the moon is glorious in another way, and the stars are glorious in their own [distinctive] way: for one star differs from and surpasses another in it beauty and brilliance.

1 Corinthians 15:41  AMP

We are all different. Like the sun, the moon, and the stars, God has created us to be different from one another, and He has done it on purpose.  Each of us meets a need, and we are all part of God's overall plan.

Thankfully, we can be secure people, knowing God loves us and has a plan for our lives. We don't have to be threatened by the abilities of others. We can be free to love and accept ourselves and one another without feeling pressure to compare or compete. 

When we struggle to be like others, not only do we lose ourselves, but we also grieve the Holy Spirit. God wants us to fit into His plan; He doesn't want us feeling pressured to fit into everyone else's plans. Different is okay; it is alright to be different.

Prayer of Thanks

Father,

          You have created me to be distinct and unique, and I thank You for that. With Your help, I'm going to avoid the temptation to compare myself to others. I'm going to be secure in who You've created me to be today. 

In Jesus' Name

Promise for Today Favorite - The Whole

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them.
Romans 12:6-9a NLT

Think about your circle of friends. Your core values - what makes you you - are probably very similar. You might even joke about them being your brothers from other mothers or sisters from different misters because you're a lot alike. However, more than likely, you have different occupations. Your gifts and talents are different but may very well complement each other.

Are you ever envious of a friend's gifting or talent? You needn't be. God has given you your own. Leaders are not the same as teachers. Singers are usually not servers. Prophets are generally not great candidates for counseling or encouraging. They CAN be, but not usually.

Don't be jealous, be thankful. What you may lack, your friend either has or can do. God gives us different gifts and models relationship so we'll know how it's done. It's together that we are the whole body of Christ. What do you bring to it? What is your part of the whole? Do you know?

Prayer:

Father,
          Open our eyes to see and recognize Your gifts and talents within our friends and within ourselves. Help us, O God, to use them to the best of You in us in order to further Your kingdom. THY kingdom come! THY will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Make Yourself Comfortable

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
2 Corinthians 13:5 NIV

When we ask Jesus to come into our lives, He does just that. He tells us we are a new creation in Him. We are changed. It is written - 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Have you found that to be true?

Do you ever think about Jesus IN your heart? The work of salvation is all Him, but it doesn't stop there. Ephesians 3:17a reads, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. When company is coming to visit, boy, we clean and scrub and make things look good. Jesus doesn't want to be a guest in our hearts - just visiting us when we're available. He wants to DWELL in our hearts - to move in. To make Himself comfortable. To feel free to add His own touches,,, We know from having lived with family or roommates, visiting a place and moving in to live there are very different. Are we different? Is Jesus comfortable living IN us?

Prayer:

Father,
           We pray Your Word - that out of Your glorious riches You will strengthen us all with power through Your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And we pray that being rooted and established in love, we may have power, together with all Your people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of You. We want to pass the test. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Different

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10 NLT

It's interesting to me how we spend the last week of December praying for change, hoping for it to happen come the first of the new year, even make resolutions to effect said change, but by day three, most are ready to quit or at the very least, to compromise.

Globally, the number one resolution is usually losing weight or getting healthier... but cutting out sugar is harder than we expected. We'd like to walk more so we can be fit, but to get in 10,000 steps a day is an awful lot like exercise... And eating more healthful foods actually requires food prep and cooking. Who has time for all that? The truth is, we want to be different, but we don't want to do what it takes to actually make it/us different.

Do we do the same thing with God in the new year? The number one Christian resolution is spending more time in God's Word. We're going to read the Bible through in a year, but by the end of the first week, we're behind and trying to catch up on the reading! Yes, praise God, His mercies are new every morning, but we can't honestly expect a difference if we're not willing to DO things differently.

Prayer:

Father,
            Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from the sin of complacency. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

New and Different

And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.
Titus 2:12-14 NLT

Ephesians 2:8 tells us that it's by His grace through faith, we are saved. When we grasp the fullness of God's grace in our lives, there should be change. That's what happens when we are made new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 assures us, This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 

Heart check - Has it begun? Are we different? Are we totally committed to doing good deeds? Does the world know us by our love for one another as Jesus said in John 13:35? Or have we become complacent, stale, isolated, diluted by the cares of this life? 

Prayer:

Father,

           We pray that the only extraordinary circumstances to change our lives come from Your plan of salvation, Your grace, and the measure of faith that You have given us, according to Your Word. We want to be a new creation in You. We want to be so different that the world will see You in us and want You for themselves. Help us to walk in the fullness of Your grace. We ask for a fresh anointing to rightly divide Your Word and gain the wisdom contained in it. Change us to become more like You, O God. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Friends' Favorites - Transformers

So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service. Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.
Romans 12:1-2 Common English Bible

When Transformers first came out (the toys, not the movies), my son was little and he thought they were the best thing ever! He wanted to be one. He was enthralled with the idea of becoming something totally different, large and powerful. 

Most everyone has something they want to change about themselves, but we can't just press a release button and unleash a large and powerful difference. However, God has been transforming life and lives since the very beginning. We don't have to be conformed to this world - we CAN be different! We CAN be transformed by the renewing of our minds (through the Word of God). And that, my friend, is HUGE and powerful! 

Prayer:

Father,
          Only You can make a new creation from a lost soul in a dying world. We thank You for loving us enough to want to do so, and for making the eternal difference in our lives so that we can make an eternal difference in the lives of those around us. Teach us, Father, Your perfect will, so that we will know what is good and pleasing and mature. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

* The Difference

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Psalm 11:3 KJV

This same text for today in the New Living Translation reads, The foundations of law and order have collapsed. What can the righteous do? And I love it in The Message, The bottom's dropped out of the country; good people don't have a chance... Hmmm... I heard someone say that just last week...

I was thinking this morning of a conversation I had years ago with someone very close to me. She believes in God, but she has not yet embraced the Word as her own standard for living. She wanted to justify her beliefs by what was going on in the world system. It seemed right. The infamous Everyone believes it's okay or Nobody's doing that. Or There's no law against it. Well, actually there is... it's just not in the book of law that you're reading...

Society (and their lawmakers) will go to unbelievable lengths to justify their sinful actions, even so far as to enact laws saying they're okay. For those fools (that's what Scripture calls them) who say, There is no God, it's almost understandable. However, it's unbelievable for those who say, We believe in God and yet still embrace what is clearly opposed to His Word...or is it? James 2:19 reads, You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. What's the difference? Alan Neel once said, "We've spent the last 30 years making believers out of people. Nowhere in the Word of God does it say go and make believers. It says 'go and make disciples'."

What difference does it make how many laws are passed to say something is okay if the Word of God says it's sin? What difference does it make if everyone is doing it if the Word says it's sin? I'm going to reiterate what I said years ago. I don't care how many rules and regulations and laws are presented, passed and posted on the books. There's only one Book of law that doesn't change. Only one whose standards and truths remain. Immovable, unshakeable. Only one that has stood the test of time since the beginning of time...and remains. The Word of God. If the Bible says it's sin, it's sin.

What does the Word say about what's going on in the world? Read further in Psalm 11, The Message, God hasn't moved to the mountains; his holy address hasn't changed. He's in charge, as always... and at the end of the chapter, God's business is putting things right; he loves getting the lines straight, Setting us straight.

Making the difference between believers and disciples. What's your standard? That's the difference.

Prayer:

Father,
           We look to You - the Author and Finisher of our faith. Make our paths straight. Lead us in the paths of righteousness for Your Name's sake, according to Your Word. Write Your Words on our very hearts, O God! In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen.

I Want Different

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
2nd Corinthians 4:16-18 NLT

For several weeks, it's been rolling around in my spirit, but I just couldn't seem to put it in words. Tonight, on my way from our Life Group meeting, this song immediately came on the radio. It was then I realized I didn't have to put it in words. God had already given the words to Micah Tyler. It's a prayer from my heart, as well. (The YouTube link is below the lyrics.)

I don't want to hear anymore
Teach me to listen
I don't want to see anymore
Give me a vision
That You could move this heart to be set apart

I don't need to recognize the man in the mirror
I don't want to trade Your plan for something familiar
I can't waste a day
I can't stay the same

Chorus:
I want to be different
I want to be changed
Until all of me is gone
And all that remains
Is a fire so bright
The whole world can see
That there's something different
So come and be different
In me

I don’t want to spend my life stuck in a pattern
I don't want to gain this world but lose what matters
So I'm giving up everything because

Chorus

I know that I am far from perfect
But through You, the cross still says I'm worth it
So take this beating in my heart
Come and finish what You started
When they see me, let them see You
Because I just want to be different


Chorus (and my Prayer):

Father,

I want to be different
I want to be changed
Until all of me is gone
And all that remains
Is a fire so bright
The whole world can see
That there's something different
So come and be different
In me
I just want to be different
So could You be different in me?

In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUT4trsrBCw