Thursday, March 25, 2021

Keep On Going

"When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself.  But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities.
And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick."
Matthew 14:13-14 (NKJV)


Taking a trip somewhere can be fun, unless you run into a problem.  If you are traveling by car and you have a flat tire or some car problem, it has the potential to ruin your trip.  Normally, if you have a problem with your car, you just fix the problem and go on.  If you don't keep going, no matter what the problem is, then you will never reach your destination.  No matter how minor or severe the problem is, the best thing to do is to keep on going and do what you need to do to reach your destination.

In Matthew 14, we see Jesus going to be by Himself.  This happened right after John the Baptist, who was a relative of Jesus, was killed by Herod.  This was obviously a terrible thing and not something Jesus or any of His family would have been happy about.  But it is interesting to see how that after Jesus goes away to be by Himself, that a multitude of people came to Jesus and that Jesus had compassion on them and healed themEven though He had experienced a problem, Jesus kept on going and doing the will of God.

In spite of the difficult situation He was dealing with, Jesus kept on going and helped those who came to Him.  No doubt Jesus was saddened by what happened to John the Baptist, but Jesus knew what His mission in life was and He knew the best thing to do, no matter what happened, was to keep on going.  We all can experience difficulties, and even tragedy in our lives, but rather than stop and allow these things to hinder or define us, we need to keep on going in our walk with God and in the plan He has for our life.

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Clean It Up

"How can a young man cleanse his way?  By taking heed according to your Word."
Psalm 119:9 (NKJV)

When I was a child, I did not always keep my room as clean as I should have.  Although my parents told me to clean my room, that meant something different to me than it did to them.  Today, people have different ideas about what it means to keep things clean, what a standard for cleanliness is, and even what is right and wrong.  What might be right in the eyes of one person for how they live their life, may be seen as completely wrong by another person.

People's ideas about things can be completely different, unless they have a similar standard.  This is the real problem in a lot of areas today, people's standards vary and for most people there is no real objective standard.  This can create problems because with no objective standard, people can do things all kinds of different ways, and right and wrong can mean different things to different people.  However, for Christians, our standard is God's Word, the Bible.  It shows us right and wrong and what is true and false

There are people today who ask the same kind of question that David asked in Psalm 119, how can I clean up my way of life and do things right?  David realized that in order to live the right kind of life he had to live his life according to God's Word, that is the only real objective standard we can use.  If we don't have a standard for what is right or wrong; our life will end up in a mess.  Our standard for life has to be God's Word.  By putting God's Word in first place in our life we will know how to live the right way and how to have a blessed life.

Thursday, March 11, 2021

A Way In The Will Of God

"For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,
making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you."
Romans 1:9-10 (NKJV)


In the past, explorers would go out to find a way to get to a certain place.  People like Lewis and Clark had an idea of where they wanted to go, but they were not exactly sure how to get there.  These different explorers were determined to reach their goal, and while they may have had some general idea of how to get there, usually it was through a process of searching that they finally found the route they were looking for to get to where they wanted to go.

The Apostle Paul traveled to many different places and preached the Gospel to many different people.  Paul knew that it was God's will for him to preach the Gospel, that was God's general will for Paul and all of us as well.  Rome was one of the places that Paul wanted to go to, and he shared that desire when he wrote his letter to the people of Rome.  The phrase Paul used when he talked about this is very important, he wanted to "find a way in the will of God" to go to those people

Paul knew the general will of God, but Paul still needed to know how and when to do it.  This can happen for us too, how do we do what we know to do?  We need to find a way in the will of God.  First, we have to know God's will.  Then we can start to explore ways and methods of carrying out God's will by talking to God in prayer and considering the options we have in our life to do what we know we need to do.  As we take steps in the general will of God, we will find a way in the will of God to do what God has called us to do.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

The Good Fight

"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses."
1 Timothy 6:12 (NKJV)

There are many kinds of fights that can take place. People might fight over ideas, material possessions, or a location.  There are also different ways that people fight, either in some type of physical confrontation or with words.  But one thing is certain, the only kind of a fight that is a good fight is the one you are on the winning side of.  While it is true that not all fights need to be fought, if you are in a fight, and you want it to be a good fight, you would have to know how to win the fight.

In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul encouraged Timothy to fight the good fight of faith.  In 2 Timothy 4:7, Paul said that he had fought the good fight, which means that he must have fought by faith.  Paul knew that the Christian life is a fight, and that the only way to win the fight was to fight in faith, because we are fighting a spiritual enemy, not a physical foe.  Paul understood that the only way for a Christian to fight is by faith, and Paul was successful because he knew how to fight the good fight of faith

Whether we like it or not, the devil is real and he will try to stop us from fulfilling the will of God in any and every area of our life.  So, what are we going to do?  We are going to have to fight the faith fight.  How do we do that?  We fight the fight of faith by keeping our focus on God and His Word and by speaking God's Word in any and every situation in our life.  No matter what we face, the way we deal with it, the way we fight the good faith fight, is to find out what God's Word has to say and then act on that in any way that we can and say what God's Word has to say.