Give Generously

This week we looked at the good gifts God gives to His children. He is generous and kind. We often zoom through our days without looking up or out and forget to notice all the ways God gave generously to us. It is easy to miss seeing His provisions, but that doesn’t mean that they are not there. They are. Every. Single. Day. If you are His child and you have breath in your lungs, there will be gifts from God you will experience each day.

What if each day for the next week we choose to take one minute and list off the various things God gave to us that day? Start small. God gave me life and breath today. God gave me food today. God gave me the birds chirping outside today. Then see how many you can come up with in that one minute. You may be tempted to keep going. Gratitude is contagious and tends to cause a snowball effect. After you have listed off the gifts from God, sincerely thank Him. It will bring Him joy to hear your thanksgiving and praise, and it will refresh your soul.

As a final way to remember the generosity of God, we want to encourage each of you to find one time this week to be generous with someone else. We are attaching a Give Generously Card from Foundations with Janet. This Card serves as a simple way to bless someone with a small gift and tell them of the greatest gift all in one. God is a good gift giver, so we want to follow suit. He will transform us one gift at a time.

Written By: Elizabeth Keith

Childlike Faith

To have faith like a child is to blindly trust the goodness, care, leadership, and provision of a father. Jesus continually called his disciples to a lifestyle of surrender and trust in him, but never so simply as in Mark 10:13-16. Scripture says,

And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

Mark 10 teaches that it’s in having childlike faith that we will receive the kingdom of God. Childlike faith is what fills us with the unshakable hope that we will one day dwell in heaven with our Father for all of eternity. As Christians, we’ve placed all our hope in the truth that Jesus came, died, and rose again, and that if we place our trust in him we will have a resurrection like his. We succeed in having childlike faith when it comes to salvation, but often we fail in placing our trust in our heavenly Father on a daily basis.

Being the child of God affords us the opportunity to live under his constant provision and leadership. As our good Father, he longs to provide for us a wonderfully abundant life full of joy, peace, purpose, laughter, friends, and unconditional love. But so often we go our own way and live our lives apart from all that’s available to us in God. Whether it be by a lack of revelation, impatience, fear, wrong teaching, or past experiences, we so often fail to have faith that God will shepherd us to his perfect plans.

God is calling you to a greater lifestyle of childlike faith. He is calling you to place your trust in him alone for your finances, relationships, future, past, and present. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” What brings our Father pleasure is unadulterated, unveiled, and glorious relationship with his children. He longs for us to draw near to him with full assurance that he is good, real, and that he longs to bless us.

Take time in guided prayer to place your full trust in your heavenly Father. Confess to him any ways in which you have been living in your own strength. Ask him to show you the root of your lack of faith. And receive his help in pursuing a lifestyle of childlike faith. May you experience the transcendent peace and joy that only comes through living by faith.

Source: Crosswalk.com

Life Expectancy

In 1990, French researchers had a computer problem: a data error when processing the age of Jeanne Calment. She was 115 years old, an age outside the parameters of the software program. The programmers had assumed no one could possibly live that long! In fact, Jeanne lived until the age of 122.

The psalmist writes, “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures” (Psalm 90:10). This is a figurative way of saying that whatever age we live to, even to the age of Jeanne Calment, our lives on earth are indeed limited. Our lifetimes are in the sovereign hands of a loving God (v. 5). In the spiritual realm, however, we’re reminded of what “God time” really is: “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by” (v. 4).

And in the person of Jesus Christ “life expectancy” has been given a whole new meaning: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). “Has” is in the present tense: right now, in our current physical moment of trouble and tears, our future is blessed, and our lifespan is limitless.

In this we rejoice and with the psalmist pray, “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14).

Written By: Kenneth Petersen

Source: Our Daily Bread

Grief, Unanswered Prayer, and Restoration

This year many people have faced unusual and challenging circumstances. Today, I heard from one of them. One of our followers wrote to us and asked how God can be real when we pray over and over for years without answer. I happen to have walked through this very question all year as I battled resentment around unanswered prayers. Earlier this year I lost my dad unexpectedly to a complicated death. This caused me to sit back and ask the Lord, “when will this pain be over?” “Did you hear me for the past 16 years?” “What were you thinking?” Often, we cry out to God, and He answers. But, sometimes it feels like He does not answer. Sometimes His answers are quiet. Sometimes they are hard. Sometimes they are not what we want, so it feels like He doesn’t answer. This leads us to ask how God can be real.

When my dad passed away, it felt like years of prayer did too. For 16 years I begged the Lord to heal my dad from his battles with mental illness and addiction. I asked for restoration. When he died, my trust in the Lord wavered. I learned that God hadn’t answered my prayers the way that I wanted, and it made me doubt that He was real. After all, how could my good God take my dad before the restoration I had begged Him for? Surely God didn’t answer me that way. Instead, He must not exist. Could God just ignore me? I expected my prayers to be answered with the healing of my dad and a beautiful life watching him as a grandfather. Instead, he was gone. In an instant. No restoration to my knowledge. So, perhaps, maybe no God?

Because he died before I got to experience his healing, I closed myself off to God. I didn’t open my Bible for months unless it was for church or work. My personal communication with the Lord felt like a desert. I refused to dive into God’s Word believing it would bring pain, and the Lord would make me work through my despair. In my mind, God either was cruel or not real. It is funny the realities about God we can so easily craft. God is real and kind.

God is kind. He did not force me into grief. When I finally faced the reality of my unanswered prayers, the Lord quietly walked beside me. He simply gave me comfort. He didn’t teach me a lesson in mocking anger like I anticipated. He allowed me to set the pace with my grief, my processing, and my newfound trust in Him. He showed me that He heard every one of my prayers.

It took time, but I finally processed my unanswered prayers and saw that they were in fact answered. Though the answer was not what I wanted, God knew that my dad needed to be called to Heaven. First, I learned that my dad’s death was an accident. This was a gift to me. I had always felt immense fear that my dad would take His own life, but the Lord graciously brought Him home before that point. Second, I found out that my dad had been struggling financially much more than I knew. When he passed away, I discovered he had just run out of money. He would have been destitute - increasing his emotional and physical struggles. Of course, I thought that God could have fixed that rather than call him home, but God knew better. God removed the burden of money and gave Him perfect provisions in Heaven. Third, my dad was battling addiction at the time of his death. It was affecting his life secretly and causing him to isolate. When he died, God restored him through death and ended his addiction. So, although my prayers were not answered as I wanted, they were answered.

When God called my dad home to Heaven, He rewrote my dad’s legacy. Instead of a broken human filled with despair, my dad was a broken human that was set free. His battles were completely removed, and he became perfect and complete in Christ. Then my dad’s death was used to tell others about Jesus. This would have been the greatest joy to him. Although he struggled a lot during his time on earth, he had a gift of evangelism. This gift continued through his memorial service. I stood in front of hundreds of people and told them that my dad loved Jesus. I spoke about how Jesus is God who came to earth as a man, lived a perfect life, and died to pay for our mistakes. Jesus defeated death by rising from the dead and offers every one of us new life if we simply accept it. My dad amidst his struggles understood the Gospel, and His death is being used to proclaim it over and over.

Overall, I learned through my grief that every prayer is answered. Sometimes we must pause and really look to see that answer though. I had to be willing to hear the answer. My dad is in heaven now, and my broken relationship with him is healed. I did find restoration. God did answer my prayer. My dad is never going to hurt again. He will never struggle. He will never feel like a failure. I will never again feel like I wasn’t good enough to fix the situation with my dad. Instead, I will remember the wonderful times I had with him. I will tell his grandchildren about how funny he was and how dearly he loved them. I will tell them how he is restored.

Every prayer was answered and all conflict was resolved in February when my dad entered the gates of heaven. Jesus looked at him and said, “well done.” “Well done” because my dad had in his broken and confused life chosen to follow Jesus. For that reason, I will declare my dad’s legacy as this, “Broken people are never enough, but Jesus is.” Like all humans my dad struggled. His life was messy, which makes the fact that He knew Jesus even better. All the mess my dad made Jesus fixed on the cross. Nothing my dad could do would fix his mistakes, but everything Jesus did restored them. My dad’s struggles after giving His life to Christ did not affect His salvation. The Lord knows that our world is filled with sin, and we will never be perfect. Jesus doesn’t expect perfection from us even after we accept His gift. He simply wants our love. Jesus will make us more and more like Him as our love for Him grows. And if we struggle our whole lives, like my dad, Jesus’ love will never waver.

I know that I will sometimes struggle with why God couldn’t have restored my dad on this side of Heaven. But, I now see that God knows everything and knows what was needed to heal my dad. God knew that there were specific people who needed to have a reality check when my dad passed away. God knew the people who needed to be in the church and hear the Gospel at the funeral. God knows who needs to read this and be reminded that even the most broken people can take a breath of relief knowing they don’t have to fix themselves. My dad didn’t, Jesus did. Jesus is enough. He is the Savior, and He answers every prayer.

 Written By: Elizabeth Keith

Christian Hoarding

Hoarding isn’t just a grotesque curiosity for TV voyeurs. It’s a real and present danger for Christ’s Church.

 C.S. Lewis once said, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” In today’s prosperous America, we’ve made hoarding just as easy, and the danger to our souls is just as real.

A new article in The Atlantic by Alana Semuels lays out the grim details. In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion on jewelry, watches, books, luggage, telephones, and related communication equipment—twice as much in inflation-adjusted dollars as in 2002. During the same time, the population grew only 13 percent. Spending on personal care products also doubled.

To hold all this stuff, we’re supersizing our houses and storage facilities. Last year, the average size of a single family home in the U.S. was 2,426 square feet—a 23 percent increase from 20 years ago. Meanwhile, two decades ago there were 26,000 self-storage units around the country. Today there are 52,000 of them!

All this acquisitiveness, Semuels says, is because online retailers such as Amazon have made buying stuff so easy, and because the global economy has made stuff so cheap. I’m sure that’s partly true, but I think the cause is deeper.

Too many of us, and this includes Christians, have bought into the lie that the pursuit of happiness necessarily includes the pursuit of stuff. “We are all accumulating mountains of things,” says Mark A. Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. “Americans have become a society of hoarders.”

And what about the harm of all this sludge to our souls? I’m uncomfortably reminded of Jesus’ parable of the rich fool in Luke 12. This man had received an abundant harvest, and what did he do? He built bigger barns to store it all and said to himself, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But what did God say to him? “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” The man couldn’t even enjoy all his earthly treasures.

And just so we wouldn’t miss the point, Jesus administered the sobering coup de grâce: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” The problem wasn’t that the man was rich—many of the Lord’s choicest saints have been abundantly blessed with the world’s goods. It wasn’t that he had stuff, but that his stuff had him, and that he wasn’t rich toward God.

Are we, who have been blessed far more abundantly than most of God’s servants around the world, as rich toward God as we need to be? I cannot tell you an amount that you must share if you don’t want to be a Christian hoarder—that’s between you, the Lord, and perhaps a wise Christian friend or financial adviser. What I can tell you is that, if our giving doesn’t hurt at least a little bit, if it doesn’t curb our seemingly insatiable urge to hoard, then it probably isn’t enough.

And in this time of material abundance, a lot of worthy churches and ministries face a chronic shortage of funds. Why is that? According to nonprofitsource.com, Christians today give only 2.5 percent of their income; during the Great Depression, it was 3.3 percent. The average giving by adults who attend Protestant churches in America is about $17 a week, and 37 percent of regular church attendees and evangelicals don’t give any money to church.

There are all kinds of Christians in this world, but the category “Christian hoarders” doesn’t exist in God’s economy. Let’s check our hearts, and our wallets, and set aside more treasure in heaven.

Written By: Eric Metaxas

Source: BreakPoint