God’s generous gifts of relationships, possessions, and meaningful work should never be cherished more than the Giver.
From Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
Maturity and freedom come when believers completely surrender to God and rely on His strength.
From Hebrews 5:12-14: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.”
When affliction strips away every crutch, one has only the Lord to depend upon. Though some people are destroyed by that kind of situation, others are built into undaunted believers.
From Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Becoming who God created us to be is a lifelong process, which often occurs in small moments as we choose love over every other thing.
2 Corinthians 5:17:Â “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:Â everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!”
When we view life from God’s perspective, every hardship becomes an opportunity to trust His good purpose, fully depend on Him, and respond in a manner that glorifies and exalts Christ.
From Philippians 1:27-28: “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel and in no way frightened by those opposing you. For them, this is evidence of their destruction but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing.”
When our top priority is to please God with our life, we can expect treasure in heaven.
From Luke 12:20-21: “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
God is not fooled by good behavior that springs from a hard heart. Obeying Him with an unwilling spirit may achieve His purpose, but we lose the joy of our reward.
From Jonah 4:9-11: “But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?’ And he said, ‘Yes, angry enough to die.’ Then the Lord said, ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?'”
Even though our culture looks very dark, Christ can use your light to show someone the way to Jesus.
From 1 Peter 3:12: “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer.”
Because God love us, we can trust how He wants to shape our lives.
From Isaiah 45:9: “Woe to those who strive with their Maker, earthen vessels with the potter! Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, ‘What are you making’? or ‘Your work has no handles’?”
If we expect God to work according to our timetable, we’re likely to face disappointment. Ours is a long-term walk of faith.
From Hebrews 11:1-3: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”
Big Sky Buckeye 