Get ready to start a journey…a journey through the pages of the Bible and the pages of your life.
Most of us are afraid of the dark—the absence of light. That’s where chaos, fear, disillusionment, and anxiety reside. It’s the place where the unknown lives. What is waiting for us…hiding from us…in the darkness? It paralyzes. We can’t move forward in the darkness. But here is the good news—the believers’ light is always shining.
“Be a light!” That’s what Beth Ann Schaeber said to her boys every day. Before she dropped them off at a friend’s house or their sporting event or when they walked out the door to go to school, “Be a light!” was the last thing they heard. They responded, “Shine bright!” Beth Ann knew that she was sending her kids into a dark world. She knew that they had been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light to reflect the light of Jesus. The apostle Paul gave us the same challenge.
Temptation comes from three sources: The world. The flesh. The devil (Ephesians 2:1-3). While all three of these sources are involved in temptation, one will lead the way. Today, let’s focus on the times when the world takes the lead.
The apostle Paul’s life was not some ivory tower professorial existence spewing forth classroom theories and then retreating to his office to read another book. He lived in the real world, learning from real-life experiences. And there, he learned that God provides exactly what we need for whatever he is calling us to do. Paul learned this through experience. And so do we.
One writer captures our need to trust God when he writes, “You’re a soul made by God, made for God, and made to need God, which means you were not made to be self-sufficient.” Trusting in ourselves, our achievements, and our accomplishments is a losing proposition. Great men and women of God were people of faith. Abraham trusted God’s leading, even when he didn’t know where he was going.
Scripture’s call to faith is not an invitation to blind belief. An unsubstantiated belief system is what superstitions are made of. Rather, “faith is established upon coherent and consistent reasoning and upon empirical evidence. Peter writes, ‘For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty’ (2 Peter 1:16).”
There is a great story involving Jesus and his disciples that reminds us that even great men and women of God have times of doubt, especially when the storms kick up. Here’s the story from Matthew’s account of Jesus walking on the water and Peter giving it a try.
The armor of God includes a shield as an essential piece of equipment. This shield is needed to “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). The believer’s shield is not constructed with wood like the ones that the Roman soldiers carried. Our shield is built with faith.
So, what does God do with our sin? I don’t mean to be flippant with that question. I know that my sin separated me from God, and Jesus paid the penalty for my sin on the cross. He took on God’s wrath for sin and satisfied the Father by his amazing work.
The room was tense as we sat around folding tables in a small room at our church. One person had said something to hurt another person. We were there to make things right—to seek and grant forgiveness. Those are hard meetings, and on this day, forgiveness never came. The exchange was sharp; the emotions were high. After much discussion, prayer, and reading Scripture, one person got up and stormed out of the room. He never set foot in our church again.
Repentance is a word that doesn’t get a lot of positive press these days. We would like to blame it on the times we live in, but honestly, people have had trouble with repentance since Genesis 3. Today, let’s consider why repentance gets such bad press.
A friend called Lori to say she was scared and feeling helpless. She was watching the news, absorbing all that was going on in the world, and was overwhelmed. She saw the craziness and confusion and reached out for encouragement.