Promise for Today - On the Advice of Paul

Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:10-11 NLT

Paul’s Final Advice

¹² Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance.

¹³ Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other.

¹⁴ Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.
¹⁵ See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people.
¹⁶ Always be joyful.
¹⁷ Never stop praying.
¹⁸ Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Promise for Today - To Boldly Go

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.             Ephesians 3:20 The Message Bible

When we know that we are in right-standing with God, doing our best to follow Him and His path for our lives, we have no problem getting our message across, do we? The Truth about doing something with boldness is to know that you are absolutely in the right. I think one of the boldest people in Scripture is Paul.

Paul writes in Ephesians 3,

The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I've been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus.

The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board. This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.

And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!

All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in Him, we're free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go.

Peter comes in a very close second for being one of the boldest. I tend to love Peter just a little more because I can SO identify with his ability to mess up… but can you in your wildest dreams imagine walking outside in the middle of a city-wide event and preaching the Message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and 3,000 people get saved?!? That's what it's like to boldly go...

Prayer:

Father,
          In Paul’s words, my response is to get down on my knees before You, the magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask You to strengthen us by Your Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in us as we open the door and invite Him in. And I ask You that with both feet planted firmly on love, we’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, in Your fullness, O God. So we can boldly go wherever we need to go to say whatever needs to be said. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen

Fears Within

For when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside, fears within.
2 Corinthians 7:5 NIV

For every Christian who has ever wrestled with fearful thoughts, this verse should be a comfort. Here, the Apostle Paul confesses to being harassed not only by outside influences but from fears within himself. He'd missed Titus in Troas and was concerned that he had lost the faithfulness of the Corinthians because of his previous letter of correction to them. Then Titus showed up and was able to overcome the fears that had harassed him. 

If you've ever said or done anything that caused doubt or fear within yourself, you know how unsettling that can be. BUT we serve a God Who is faithful to give us exactly what we need when we turn everything over to Him. He will do for us what He did for Paul. He will send someone alongside who will encourage us, pray for us, or testify about how God saw them through the same thing. 

All Christians are humans and as such, wrestle with doubts and fear. Paul, King David, Simon Peter, Moses, Elijah... just to name a few. 

1st Peter 5:8-10 tells us, Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 

We are made new in Christ. We are made to be overcomers.  

Prayer:

Father,

          Thank You for Your Grace. Thank You for restoring, confirming, strengthening, and establishing us, and making us fit for Your purpose. Give us eyes to see those around us who need to be encouraged, too. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Paul's Advice *

Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.
1 Thessalonians 5:10-11 NLT

Paul’s Final Advice

¹² Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance.

¹³ Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other.

¹⁴ Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.
¹⁵ See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people.
¹⁶ Always be joyful.
¹⁷ Never stop praying.
¹⁸ Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen