Don't Worry About Anything

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Then you will experience God’s peace,

which exceeds anything we can understand.

His peace will guard your hearts and minds
as you live in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT)

As we look at the children of Israel in the book of Exodus, how many times can and do we see ourselves? God had just done so many miracles, things that only He could have done. They had watched Him turn the Nile River into blood. They had witnessed God sending boils to cover all of the men and animals throughout the land. Then they saw the plague of locusts and darkness that culminated in the death of all first born children of Egypt while all of God’s chosen people who were covered by the blood of the lamb did not see death. You would think that after all of that, that trust would not be an issue with these folks. However, our human nature is strong and how soon we forget God’s gracious provisions and protection when the going really gets tough.

Their thought was that this had to be a trick. All that separated them from their enemy was land and in front of them sat the Red Sea. They cried out, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 14:11-12) But God in His incredibly gracious way, once again provided for His own. He opened a way where there was no way. He made a roadway in the wilderness and a path way through the sea. The pathway of life for the Lord’s people became a roadway of death for the Egyptians.

God had given His word through Moses and Aaron that they were going to a land that He had prepared for them. He had made a covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. He was not about to break His promise. However, circumstances were giving them other signals. God has given us His word. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He promised to give us the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7). In every circumstance He has promised to meet our every need (Philippians 4:19)! He has promised to not only hear, but to answer our prayers if we ask according to His will (1 John 5:14-15). We need but to exercise our faith and believe Him at His Word. He is worthy to be trusted, He has never failed, and that’s a reason to praise Him. Let’s do so together today and throughout this week.

Pastor MJ

Living With Hope

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17-19 (NIV)

While Job saw and felt the boils that were covering his body, God saw the millions of people who would be encouraged by his story of praise in the midst of trials. As Joseph was surrounded by the darkness of the dry well that he was thrown into by his brothers, God saw the store house of food that would feed thousands during the severe famine. At the time that David’s family saw a “ruddy” young man God saw the greatest human king of Israel. And over two thousand years ago, while the magi saw the infant Messiah, the Jews hope for gaining freedom from Roman oppression, God saw the cross of Calvary.

Scripture teaches us much about perspective and hope. Things that look strange and unreasonable to us are at times perfect and purposefully part of God’s Sovereign plan. “For my ways are not your ways…”  ( Isaiah 55:8).

Such truth and living examples throughout Scripture should give us hope day in and day out. Just knowing that what we see in our present circumstances is only from our vantage point and that God sees the whole picture should help us to put our trust in His goodness and sovereignty, not our present situation.

Remember Peter? His present circumstances dictated that he was going to probably drown. But that was when he focused on the water. When he focused on Jesus, not the water, He was safe. Peter saw the waves crashing around him; Jesus saw an opportunity to show that He was the Lord of all creation, even the sea.

I must admit, I often struggle when the “resource box” is empty. Too often, my first reaction is to fret and to wonder, “How in the world is this going to work out?” It must break God’s heart when after doing miracle after miracle; after meeting me around the corner from the impossible, time and time again with “I’ve been here all along with this incredible (some provision)”, that I still worry and don’t remember that God’s ways are not my ways and His timing is not my timing, but that His love is real, His faithfulness is great and eternal and that He is worthy of my undying trust. Our hope is not in our circumstances, rather in the one who will one day, right every wrong and wipe every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4). That is a hope worth holding on to.

Pray with me today that He would grant us the ability to live with hope and a eternal perspective.

Pastor MJ

Be Thankful in All Circumstances

Never stop praying.

Be thankful in all circumstances,

for this is God’s will for you

who belong to Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 (NLT)

Saying “thank-you”: two words that are so strong and significant that they even bring pleasure to the heart of Jesus, Himself. Two words that mean so much that an entire story was written about Christ’s reaction about not expressing thanks in Luke 17:11-19.

Someone asked me a question not too long ago that I want to pose to you today:

“What if the only things you had left tomorrow are the things that you have given thanks for?”

All I could say after I heard that was, wow! What a thought provoking question.

We have a chance today to say, thank you. Here is some space below to do just that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                       

                                                                                                       

But He Knows the Way That I Take

“But he knows the way that I take;

when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”

Job 23:10 (NIV)

Not too long ago, one of my piano students was admiring a blown glass piano in my office. After explaining to her about the process of how glass is made and that sand is the major ingredient, she said, “I can’t believe something as ugly as sand can become as beautiful as blown glass!”

It’s amazing how the words out of a child’s mouth can reinforce such deep biblical truths. Immediately, I began to picture what condition I was in before Christ saved me. John Newton’s song says it perfectly, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…” The most undesirable looking sand is “eye candy” compared to what I was, what you were before a loving Father gave His only son for us. Our sin, the dark filthy stain that separated us from having any kind of relationship with God, when laid upon His son on the cross was so reprehensible that He could not even look at Jesus. For one moment in history, God the Father turned His back on His only Son, due to the depth of the filth laid on Jesus. But just as 3,000 degree fire takes sand, gypsum, soda ash, limestone and dolomite and turns it into pure glass, the refiner’s fire through the blood of Christ takes our dark sin and makes us as pure as Christ Himself.

As the heavenly angels gaze upon our lives and the lives of those saints who have gone before us; as they look upon us as the trophies of His grace, they must have a similar reaction to the one of my student commenting about my blown glass piano. I can hear the angels proclaiming, “I can’t believe that someone as wicked and vile as (fill in our name) can become as beautiful as Christ.

As we bring Him our praise and worship today, take a moment to reflect on who you were, who you are and who you’d be today without Christ in your life. And then stand in awe, sing in wonder, sit in humiliation and walk in a worthy manner as one who has been blessed beyond measure, comprehension or any merit of our own.

“Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD.

"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Isaiah 1:18

Pastor MJ

WHY

Why, is a question that we tend to ask when we don’t understand the reasons for something taking place or the absence of the same. It’s a question that most of us if asked would admit that we’ve asked God. It’s a question that I’ve asked and have with tears in my eyes just yearned for an answer from God.

In John 11, when Jesus heard that his close friend Lazarus was dying, He told those around Him, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." (John 11:4 NIV) Then it says that Jesus stayed where He was for two more days. If it were up to Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, they would have had Jesus drop everything and come right then to heal their brother and keep him from dying. But as we read this portion of scripture we see that it wasn’t up to them and that it wasn’t about them, or their brother, rather the circumstance that they found themselves in was all about God’s glory.

It’s a very natural thing for us to become focused on ourselves when in the midst of our circumstances we find ourselves weighed down and burdened by the reality of pain and suffering. Could it be possible that the cancer our loved one is facing is for God’s glory? Can my losing my job and not being able to get one for this long be because God wants to be glorified though it? Maybe you’ve said, “I’ve been praying for my husband for years to come and know the Lord, but to no avail. Should I continue to pray or give up?” Could this journey of pain be for the glory of God? How could my life of struggling with my addictions ever turn out to bring glory to God?

Mary and Martha are beautiful in the way they relate to Jesus. They were honest enough to say to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In reality Lazarus would probably still died, we don’t know, but we do know that the sickness, the death, the sorrow, the hurt and the pain that this family was feeling was all a part of God’s plan to reveal His glory. Martha follows her statement to Jesus by saying, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” In her pain, in her sorrow, she never gave up hope. Her brother was dead, but she still believed that Jesus could do the impossible.

As we take steps day by day, moment by moment and face circumstances beyond our control, let’s remember that it’s all about Him and His glory. It’s not about our good and well being, it’s about His glory which when accomplished will always work out for our good. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28 NIV) Our circumstances will look much different when viewed through the lenses of God’s glory.