Worthy Words

What delights capture your attention? The world offers a wide variety of indulgent options that can draw a believer away from what should be their greatest satisfaction—time spent studying God’s word. To treasure other things above the Word of God leads to trouble. Just check out the lives of Lot in Genesis 13; 18:1-19:38 and Achan in Joshua 6-7, and King Saul in 1 Samuel 15, and then Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 and you will see that the idolatry of self against the truth of the Word never wins out. We need a heart that seeks God, like Abraham in Gen 14:18-24, Moses in Hebrews 11:24-27, Mary of Bethany in Mark 14:3-9 and the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:1-11. If our heart is seeking God then our eyes will not lead us to stray from God. We must spend time in the Word and treasure it in our hearts by meditating upon it. “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.” (Psalm 119:15 ESV) Having a teachable spirit will enable us to learn from the Lord. Instead of...

I must admit that there are times when my problems turn into troubles.   At first I just shrug my shoulders and keep going. Then, there are the troubles that come one right after the other or all at the same time that’s when my faith becomes maxed-out. “Why, God? Why me?” seems to follow. Our man Moses said just like we might say it, “Lord, why are you treating me, your servant, so harshly ?” (Numbers 11:11) The short answer when the frequency of troubles strains our faith is: that for faith to be faith it must be tested and withstand the testing. Our heavenly Father sends tests to help us strengthen the worthiness of our faith. Wood is consumed by fire but gold becomes pure by its flames. Our faith will be torched if it only trusts God when everything is going well—when the kids and family are fabulous, when friends are friendly, when the body is functioning and when the job is paying better than expected. Real faith will glow when heated by the Lord’s faithfulness—when f...

Here is a truth that transcends your situations—the Lord takes pleasure in you, and rejoices over you. That should jump-start your faintly beating heart. That should be the news of the day to cheer you up. Christ-follower you are God’s delight! When we gaze into the mirror it’s a bit hard to see in ourselves why God should take pleasure in us. What we see is our whining and complaining over the burdens we are facing. We reflect upon our sinful antics and unfaithfulness. Our foolishness, imperfections and sicknesses are all that catch our minds eye.   Well then, instead of lamenting over yourself, lift up your eyes to this good news.   Nowhere in the Bible will you read that God delights in the majesty of purple mountains or twinkling stars or even His holy angles. His delight is in YOU!    You will read, however, that you are a fallen creature enslaved by sin, but saved, exalted, made righteous by His Son and glorified by His grace. Would you have ever t...

What you say and how you say it can be the difference between terror and triumph. Take for example the story of Gideon’s triumph over the Midianites in Judges 7. God commanded Gideon to lead his men to do two things. First, cover up their torch lights with clay pots until they heard the blowing of a ram’s horn that trumpeted the signal to break the concealing pots and letting their light shine. Second, they were to shout by crying out with a loud voice, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” (Judges 7:20) These 300 Israelite soldiers had no swords in their hands but one in their mouth and gained victory by shouting “The sword.” Someone once said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” For the Church and every Christ-follower “The mighty Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit!” (Ephesians 6:18) .  When you, Christ-follower, speak the commands of the Word of God it is like taking up a sword and using it to defeat the enemy (Revelation 19:21) . For the name of the Lord is a t...

God gave Moses an important assignment. Even though disobedience kept him from entering into the Promised Land, God’s final work for his servant Moses was to use his spiritual gifts to encourage his young understudy, Joshua. He had the enormous task and responsibility of leading God’s people in chasing out the giant nations and to possess the Promised Land. “Your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will lead the people into the land. Encourage him, for he will lead Israel as they take possession of it.” Deuteronomy 1:38 Whenever the task you’re facing is God sized. God will send someone to encourage you. He knows that His will for your life requires encouragement along the way. Each day has a deadliness to it that can easily allow you to be discouraged and dismayed. Therefore, God instructs Christ-followers to encourage one another. (Pr. 10:21, Isa. 35:3, Ro. 1:12, 2Co. 13:11, 1Th. 5:11, Tit 2:6, 15) God knows what He is doing by this command to encourage. When that someone comes a...

Isaiah spoke these words to the people of Zion a long, long time ago. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, this is the way; walk in it” —Isaiah 30:21. Long before the world could even dream about Global Positioning Systems. I have a GPS it is incorporated into the radio so it fits seamlessly into the dash of my pickup. The first time I used it and heard some female’s voice telling me to get ready to turn right, then left and then telling me I had arrived at my destination, I thought this is way too cool. If my Grandad could have slipped out of heaven and joined me in that truck, he would have said, “God is telling us where to go!” God the Holy Spirit is our spiritual GPS. He is the voice behind us that says, “This is the way, walk in it.”  The Living Bible says it this way…“And if you leave God’s paths and go astray, you will hear a Voice behind you say, No, this is the way; walk here.” It is so easy to leave God’...

Last year Dawn and I went to Glenwood Caverns, in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The cave, discovered in 1897, is called King’s Row which according to USA Today is one of the top 10 best places to go underground. Because of the depth and complexity of this cavern it required that a spelunking guide lead us into and out of this hollowed-out hole in the ground. The 40 minute tour descending a 150 feet revealed beautiful formations of stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws and cave bacon. Without our spelunking guide directing us where to step and where to look we would have missed most of the glorious features that make this cave unique and beautiful. It would have been foolish to venture forth into that cave without our guide knowing where to take the next step. It’s just as foolish for a Christ-follower to have no need of godly guidance.  Typically we do things that are ill-advised and are led astray by it. Then, when realizing the lack of wisdom our heart begins to grieve over it...