Daily Bread
So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. - Matthew 6:31-34
Last week I was really worrying about finances. So on Sunday I rose early and took my worries to my heavenly Father. I realized that I needed to choose to trust (to have faith) in God’s promises in dealing with worry. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. - 1 Peter 5:7 Then God reminded me of Matthew 6:33.
Through the years I have had to make choices about whether to put God first or to try to pursue meeting my needs. When I first decided to follow Christ, I travelled around the country after college pursuing my desires, but had a hard time finding a good job. God told me to go back to Rhode Island and get back involved with the people who had introduced me to Christ so I could grow deeper in my relationship with God. I had been looking for a job for months and had never had trouble finding work before, but had no success finding work. As soon as I moved back to RI I had two job offers in two weeks.
Years later when Lynn and I got married, we choose to put our children first once we began to have them by having Lynn stay home and not work. We understood that loving our children and raising them in a caring, stable family environment was very important to God. A month after we made that decision God gave me a new job increasing my salary 50%.
As I talked to God about my worries, God spoke to me through Matthew 6:34. Do not focus on tomorrow, but focus on helping the people around you today. I spend much of my time trying to figure out what I am going to be doing in the future or how I am going to get work in the future. But God wants me to focus on what He is doing through me today to help other people. When I am focused on trying to figure things out and what I want, I miss out of what God is doing in other people’s lives and the opportunities to help them.
When we focus on serving others and doing God’s will one day at a time, He will take care of providing what we need tomorrow. When we know God will take care of what we need, it frees us up to give ourselves away to others to meet their needs. Each day we do God’s will and he gives us our daily bread (what we need for that day).
Labels: Prayer, Priorities, Provision
A Purpose Driven Life
I have been taking a class with Shane
Spannagel and reflecting on my own past experiences about sharing the good news that God loves people and wants to help people experience wholeness and fullness of life as He originally created it to be. It is not God's desire that people suffer without hope and die physically to experience an eternity of torment in a place of darkness apart from Him outside of heaven. This reality of being
separated from God is what our ancestors chose for us when they rejected a relationship with God and we experience this
separation from God because of the human condition of self-
centeredness (sin) that we inherit.
Read here for what God desires for people.
I have been processing the passive tendency I have observed in some who wait for God to "speak to them" about sharing about Christ's love. Do we need to sit around and wait for God to tell us to go teach people about who He is or has God already told us and doesn't need to repeat the command? Matthew 28:18-20. What we need to ask is who do you want us to help today and go with a listening ear for God to direct us in the going?
Whenever I have sought the Lord for opportunities to share the good news, He has always provided them. Why? Because God loves people and it is his will for us to "seek and save the lost" just like Jesus did. Jesus lives in us through the Spirit of God and Jesus is intentional about reaching out to those who need God. We also need to be intentional and plan for time to share God's love with people through words of hope and actions of helping meet genuine needs.
What you plan for, you will do. We plan to make time to pray and read the Bible, why don’t we plan to share the
message of hope. Is it less spiritual to plan to share with people than to plan to have time to meet with God or to serve others in ministry? We plan to teach every Sunday and ask that the Spirit of God will lead us in what to teach, therefore we should also plan to reach out and help people who need the hope and help that Jesus is offering them asking God to direct us to those who most need that today.
Faith equals action. If you
believe something you will do it. If you truly
believe Jesus is continuing his work to rescue the lost world through his body, the church, then you will start acting in ways that anticipate that will happen. It has always been my experience that God give opportunities and saves people when I actively seek the opportunities to share the gospel. Why? Because god loves people and wants them to go to heaven.
That's why he sent his Son to die on a cross in
order to take away the sins of the world.
Labels: Jesus, Priorities
