Got my thinking cap on

 

I don't know about you, but I like to think.

My thinking cap is almost always on.

The 'what-if's  tend to boggle my mind.

The 'I wonder's like to creep in.

The 'I wish's tend to take over.

I mean, I'm not the only one, right?

 

It's not that I dwell on the past.

I know that the past is past, but when it comes to the future, that's a whole other story.

My mind just loves to jump ahead, but my feet just can't keep up.

I think that's pretty normal for us, human beings.

If only, we could see ahead.

If only, we could find out what's next.

I'm always thinking about the uncertain.

What about you?

 

I don't think it's necessarily a problem to think about the uncertain future that lies in front of us.

However, when it starts to take over and the thoughts turn into worries, it becomes a problem.

 

The truth is, God holds us in His hands.

In His hands, not only does He hold our present, but He holds our future.

This truth should create an overwhelming excitement in our hearts that allows us to be certain in uncertainty.

Jeremiah 29:11 - 'For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'"
 

If it all depended on me, I wouldn't be able to be confident in the unknown, but knowing that God has it under control is such a relief! I hope this amazing truth gives you relief and creates a yearning to be in God's will, because it is never too late to put your faith in Him!

 

I love what Oswald Chambers says in "My Utmost for His Highest", "Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in - but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him."

 

Don't forget to pray for the unreached people group of the day!

Reading plan for the week:
Today: 2 Samuel 4-7
Tuesday: 2 Samuel 8-12
Wednesday: 2 Samuel 13-15
Thursday: 2 Samuel 16-18
Friday: 2 Samuel 19:21
Saturday: 2 Samuel 22-24

 

 

fear and regret

I think most people would agree with me that a common fear is to live with regrets.

Maybe a person is nearing the end of his life here on earth and he regrets never going skydiving. 

Maybe a person is nearing the end of her life and she regrets never going to nursing school.

Maybe a couple regrets never traveling the world before starting a family.

I have secret that will insure that you will never have regrets...

In class, this past Tuesday, something the speaker said really stood out to me.

I thought I would share it with you.

Really ponder it.

Here it goes...

"You will never regret when you live by faith.

You will regret when you live by fear."

Go on ahead and read it one more time.

I have never thought of that way.

Have you?

If we live by faith, believing and obeying God's will...we will never regret.

You can't regret God's work.

He has a plan for your life and it's better than any plan you that you will ever come up with.

So you can trust that if you follow His will, your purpose in life will be fulfilled, God's glory will be revealed and you will live with no regrets.

If we live by fear, we will have regrets. No doubt.

On a surface level, if you really have the desire to skydive, but you're scared to follow through so you don't do it...you will regret that at the end of your life.

On a deeper level, if you feel called to go overseas to spread the Gospel and you don't because you're afraid...you will regret it. 

Living by faith isn't always easy. Putting aside your control and letting God have control can be pretty hard for us, humans. However, if living by faith gets hard, but you stick with it, God will surely give you joy in return. Sticking with it, is the key. 

Oswald Chambers says in his book, "My Utmost for His Highest", " Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let's apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against-tribulation, suffering, and persecution- are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. 'We are more than conquerors through Him' 'in all these things'; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn't know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4). 

So it's rather simple, if you push past your fears and live by faith, you will live a life with zero regrets. You may not completely understand at times, but living by faith will create a regret-less life filled with abundant joy.

Which will you choose - fear or faith?

Don't forget to pray for the unreached people group of the day!

at your service

 

Today I was reading my devotional book for the year (My Utmost for His Highest) and I had to share it with you.

 

When you think of a king what do you think of?

Well, I picture a throne, a man with a crown and many people waiting on him hand and foot. I picture a man that people bow down to. I picture a man who rules the land.  

 

As Christians, we serve a King...Jesus Christ. He is the one and only true King. He's not like the earthly kings, that's for sure. He performed miracles. He was crucified. He was resurrected. He lives forever. No king can compare. Another thing that separates Christ the King from all the rest is His character.

 

Earthly kings expect people to serve them. They expect to have their feet rubbed. They expect to have the finest of jewels. They expect all of their desires to be given to them without moving a finger. Jesus didn't work that way. Let me tell you why...

 

Matthew 20:28 says, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve." Sit with that for a bit.

Jesus Christ didn't come expecting to be served, but came expecting to serve others.

That's huge, if you ask me. No king has ever lowered himself to serve others, but our King...the one, true King has.

 

Jesus wants to serve us. He is the King of kindness, humility, and love (along with many other things...check out my In Him We Find series). Because He shows us what a servant's heart looks like, we should in turn serve others. It is when we serve others that God's heart of service is shared.

 

We should never think we are too good to serve others. We should never place ourselves higher than others, with our nose in the air, because the only person who has a right to do that, never did. He lowered himself in order to serve, instead of expecting to be served.

 

Oswald Chambers writes, "Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake."

 

Because He has served us, we should serve others for the sake of serving Him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 11 In Him we find...

 

You know how in school, teachers would often give test reviews? Don't worry, I'm not going to give you a test, however, I could ;) Just kidding. Anyway, even though we're not taking a test, I think it would be good to review the past 10 days of "In Him we find..." By the way, thank you for joining me in this series!! Okay, lets break it down:

In Him we find...

Faithfulness

Healing

Freedom

Holiness

Grace

Confidence

Endurance

Heavenly Father

Sacrifice

Rest

That's good stuff, if you ask me! The best part is that we're only 11 days in!

 

So today we were watching church on the computer, (since the stomach bug is still visiting) and let me tell you, God gave me a few days of posts for this series. Lots of lightbulbs turned on during the sermon (I love when that happens!). Don't you love it when things become clear to you? What about when bad things become clear to you? Like when your pastor is talking about coveting and you feel like you've been stabbed in the stomach with a spotlight on you and everyone watching, because you know you've been in the business of coveting lately. Not a good feeling, huh? What about when you are going to do something that you know probably isn't the right thing to do and you get this yucky, gut feeling and you realize,

"Hm maybe I shouldn't do this." 

That my friend, is called conviction.

 Maybe it's just me, but the word even sounds scary.

 

Out of God's goodness, He convicts us of being guilty of doing wrong. Now you may be thinking, how is that a good thing? I'll explain more about that in upcoming posts. Although being convicted can sting and hurt, good can come out of it. We should be thankful for these moments of conviction or "wake up calls" because it shows us that God sees what goes on in our lives. It's like He's waving His red flag, hoping that we will take notice and turn around before our sin multiplies. He doesn't have to convict us, but He does. How awesome is that?!

 

"Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses the conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God." ~Oswald Chambers

 

"When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment." ~John 16:8

 

So what is God convicting you of today?

 

Happy Sunday & if you're reading along with me, today is a catch up day! Read until John 6 :) See ya tomorrow for another day of "In Him we find..."! (It has to do with today's post so you won't want to miss out!)

My fear of yielding and merging...

In driver's ed, one of the things you learn is to yield. The definition for yield is "to give up, as to superior power or authority, or surrender." If you know me, you know that yielding has been a struggle for me. Being from a small country town, you don't have many opportunites to practice yielding. Whenever I would be in the city, I would freak out. Now when we are driving and yielding to traffic, we don't often think of those cars being superior to us. If you think about it, they are superior, because if we were to ignore the yield sign and just go, we most likely would be crushed into pieces by the traffic.  Obviously, being crushed to pieces is not on our to-do list so we should definitely obey those yield signs.  If you know me, you know that merging and  yielding has been a struggle for me. Being from a small country town, you don't have many opportunites to practice  merging and yielding. Whenever I would be in the city, I would freak out when I had to yield to other cars. I'm now over my fear of yielding (and actually quite good at it, if I must say so myself ;), but yielding can still be a hard thing to do at times.

 

So yesterday, I went to my grandparent's house to work on my t-shirt quilt sewing project. (I'm almost done...finally!) While I was there, they gave me a book that they thought would be a good read for me..."My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. My grandad has his own copy and is reading it for the third time (so it must be pretty good!) It's a year-long devotional book with short devotions. I started reading it today and I'm already loving it just after one devotion!  So I figured I would share with you the topic of today's devotion.

 

It is titled "Let Us Keep to the Point" and based around Philippians 1:20, ". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body , whether by life or death". The main idea of today's devotion is to yield to God, no matter what circumstance.

 

Just like we yield/surrender to traffic, we should also yield/surrender ourselves to God. Why? God has superiority over us and we can't argue with that. I mean can we command light and darkness and create a whole solar system? Don't think so. It is clear that God has authority over us.  If we don't yield to His will, we will be crushed to pieces. We will be crushed in a sense that we ignored God's calling on our lives and therefore, unable to find peace in knowing that God is using us for His big plan. Even though it might be scary yielding and merging on the highway, we should never be afraid to yield and merge our lives with God's will. Our goal should be  our absolute best for God. Chambers says, "Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only - my utmost for His highest." We should say with confidence, just as Chambers did, " I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and for Him alone."

 

Yield to God. Surrender your life to Him and get ready to be used for the best mission on this Earth...showing God's love to others.

 

If you are joining in on the read-your-bible-in-a-year plan, today's reading is Matthew chapters 11 & 12.