Tag Archives: trials

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A Different Spirit

Numbers 14:24 (NIV), “But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.”

God brought the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, miraculously. Thier constant grumbling and complaining had finally gotten so out of hand that God tells Moses that He will scatter and destroy them all. In their place God promises to make a great nation out of Moses.

Think about this for a minute, if God’s patience was tried, what do you think poor Moses was feeling? Had I been him, I would have probably jumped at the chance to be rid of the great responsibility of leading an ungrateful people. Not Moses. He reasons with God and he prays for God to show mercy.

Numbers 14:17-19 (NASB), “But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared, ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.’ “Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.””

Of course God relents and this is what He tells Moses in Verses 20-24,

“So the LORD said, “I have pardoned them according to your word; but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD. “Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it. “But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.”

Those who didn’t trust God, or the leader God placed over them, were not going to see the Promised Land. They instead, would die in the wilderness. They brought a bad report and believed a lie rather than the promises of God.

Fear and unbelief always questions, “Is it really mine?” and “Does He really want to do this for me?”

That wasn’t Caleb.

Notice that God said of him, “But my servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.”

God calls Caleb “My servant.” Then points out that he has a completely different attitude than the others, and in some versions it says he wholeheartedly followed God or that he remained loyal.

Fear may question God, but Faith says, “If God said it, then it is true and He will do it.”

Out of all those people who came out of Egypt, all of the adult, only two got to enter into the Land that was promised, Caleb and Joshua. Not even Moses ended up going in because he disobeyed God in his own anger and impatience with the people. Another forty years of wondering in the desert was added to their time. Each person who hung on to the slave mentality died in that desert. Each one who lived in unbelief and couldn’t seem to take hold of faith, perished.

However, those who trusted God, were loyal, remained in faith, those men got a portion of the inheritance. Not just with their tribes, or part of a group. God blessed them each with their own land.

Those that perished are a warning to us, and those that received their blessing are a promise.

Hebrews 10: 35-39 (BSB), “So do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward. You need to persevere, so that after you have done God’s will, you will receive what He has promised. For, “In just a very while little, He who is coming will come and will not delay. But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he shrinks back, I will take no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

What spirit is in you?

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Building Your Faith

Romans 12:3 (KJB), “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”

We have all been given the measure of faith. I always felt like somehow I was lacking in faith, yet repeatedly guest speakers, prophets, and my own pastors would tell me that I was “full of faith” or “faithful.” Then I would feel kind of proud of myself, like I did something. Then the next trial would come, it would pull the rug out from under my feet and I would pray for more faith. I knew that “Faith came by hearing the word of God,” so I read my Bible sometimes even out loud, but I still had faith issues. Yes, I needed to hear God speaking to me through His word; I needed to find out what He had to say about me, life, and how to live it. However, I also needed to grow or build my faith by doing what that word said.

That is what God was trying to tell me through those pastors and prophets. Not that I had done something right, just that God had already given me the measure of faith. I owned it. I wasn’t lacking faith, I just wasn’t walking by faith. What had been given to me wasn’t being used right, or enough to make it grow.

While praying about faith, God showed me a can of hairspray. When we purchase it, the can is full of hairspray. We know it is there so we can push the nozzle and we know the sticky stuff will come out. We are that can. When we surrender to the Lord, He fills us up with everything we will need to walk with Him. We need to have to believe that when we push that nozzle of faith, that what is inside of us will come up. Think of the nozzle as God’s word. What does He say? Then walk out in faith in that word and the God that backs His word.

So we don’t need more faith, we just have to build up what we have already been given. If you need stronger arms, you don’t pray for another bicep, you work the one you have until it gets stronger. Our faith never gets stronger until we step out. For example, when we first hear a tithing message that explains why we tithe and what the blessings are, we step out and write that check, believing that what God said is true and that we will reap what we sow. Then, when He proves His word true and we have more money at the end of the month, our faith in His word grows. The same is when we receive a healing, no matter what the symptoms are, how we feel physically, we rise up and walk. We get out of bed and do what we don’t feel like doing. This is standing on His word, walking in faith, and how we strengthen our faith.

When God promises that we lack no good thing, this includes faith. We aren’t lacking! He gave faith to us as a gift. We just have to build up our faith muscles.

“Regardless of circumstances, regardless of influences about us, let us turn every problem into His care. Your worst enemy is yourself. It has come through Sense Knowledge that would limit you to your own ability. The language of the Senses is:”I can’t, I haven’t the ability, I haven’t the strength, I don’ have the opportunity, I have no education, I have been limited.” The language of faith says, “I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me.”” ~E.W. Kenyon

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Book Review for “A Heart Like His”- Christian Non-Fiction

What the book is about: “We all go through times when we feel insignificant or times when we feel certain that we have experienced a degree of failure from which there is no return. This is not a reality we experience alone, but is one that a man after God’s heart experienced as well. From shepherd, to refugee, to king of Israel, David exhibited the purest virtues and the most heinous sinfulness, but through it all his relationship with the Lord continued to grow.

A Heart Like His looks at this bond of mutual love and admiration between a man who was not unlike any of us and the one true God who is all good and all powerful. Beth Moore walks us through an exploration of David’s incredible life, drawing spiritual insights from a man who boldly fulfilled his divine destiny not merely by what he did, but who he loved and served. Bringing lessons from David’s life to bear on your own, this picture of a man who loved and followed God will help you to serve with a heart focused on Him no matter the circumstance.”

My Review: This is a great book on the life of David. His faith, his love for God, his sins, and his redemption. We all go through some stuff on our path. If you need some encouragement this is a good book for you. Beth Moore is an inspiring author. I can recommend for teens and up. I give it five stars.

Get it here.

 

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Growing Not Coping

Our Senior Pastor is fond of saying, “Every living thing is a growing thing.” Usually he goes on to talk about how if something isn’t growing it is dead, or if water isn’t flowing it gets stagnant. There has to be growth and a flow to our lives. Yet, there have been times in my life, sometimes while under an attack, others just because I got lazy and apathetic, that I found myself just coping with life. During some real tough times I even felt like I wasn’t even coping very well. It was God’s grace alone that brought me through and allowed me to grow within the process.

Romans 5:1-5 (NIV), “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

We don’t have to just cope with our problems. In fact many of them will just be stepping stones to something better. Some of the things we feel like are such a big deal, such as health issues or finances, can be dealt with by standing on God’s promises and rebuking our enemy. No matter how tough things look, don’t allow yourself to just get by, to grit your teeth and just get through one more day, or hour, or minute. Press in and grow in the midst. Let God’s love and peace keep you, and the Holy Spirit produce fruit.

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How is Your Heart?

Proverbs 28:14 (Jubilee Bible 2000), “Blessed is the man that fears God always, but he that hardens his heart shall fall into evil.”

A hard heart is a very dangerous thing. A heart that is hard does not hear the voice of God, it is not teachable or humble and quite frequently it is full of pride. We harden our hearts or allow them to get hard for all different reasons. The most common one is that we are afraid of getting hurt. It’s a self protection mechanism, part of our fallen human nature.

The only problem is that we are only harming ourselves not helping. What we foolishly see as protection actually keeps the One away who wants to protect us. In fact the Comforter can’t even comfort us and heal those past hurts. A hard heart becomes like a stainless steel container that houses bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, and all kinds of ugly junk. If you let it stay hard long enough, it becomes incapable of love.

Have you ever seen the experiment where someone dips a soft petaled rose into liquid nitrogen? They then dash it onto a table top and what happens? It shatters into a million little rose colored shards.

“It’s the hard things that break; soft things don’t break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it’s the soft things that can’t break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces!” – C. JoyBell

Ok, so maybe you realize your heart is hard, or on its way to diamond plated, what do you do?

First repent. Ask God to forgive you for the sin of self preservation, for putting yourself first, for doubting that He could or would heal you and protect you.

Next, soak it in the word. Look up scriptures about how much He loves you and how important it is for our hearts to be soft, teachable, pliable, and humble. Memorize them if you have to. Tell someone about it so that they can encourage you and hold you accountable.

Years ago a friend of mine and I agreed, after a conversation about the condition (hardness) of our hearts, to occasionally ask each other, “How is your heart?” I can’t tell you how much that helped me. We actually ended up not asking very often, but the thought that she might kept me searching my heart and asking God to help me keep it soft. The outcome was that for a while, some things really hurt! But the good news was that it only proved that my heart was tender again. So when I loved, I really loved!

How is your heart today, my friend?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Trust

Jeremiah 17:7 (NLT), “But blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence.”

Blessed is the one who trusts in Him. Period. This isn’t rocket science. If we trust Him, we are blessed.

It all boils down to this: How much does He love me? When we are sure He loves us we stop questioning Him and just do what He tells us to do. This is putting our faith on Him and Him alone.

I have been struggling with some trust issues the past few days, feeling like I have bitten off more than I could chew and felt like I didn’t have it in me to do what I had purposed in my heart to do. An old enemy, anxiety, came creeping back, and I am ashamed to say I didn’t toss him out as quickly as I should. After a wonderful encouraging Sunday morning message, and some lengthy prayer, I finally realized that my lack of trust wasn’t in myself, that unwelcome anxiety was the result of placing my trust in ME instead of in Him.

Simply put, it was sin. So, what does a person do when they realize they have misplaced their trust? Repent! I told God I was sorry, thanked my Pastor for the message, and changed what I was thinking.

This morning during my quiet time with the Lord, He spoke these words into my heart, “I LOVE you, let that be your strength today.”

Do I trust Him! You bet I do. Do I sometimes forget He is trustworthy, sadly yes, yet, He is faithful to remind me of His love. And because He loves me, I can put my trust in Him.

Amen!

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See Him Smiling

Numbers 6:22-27 (Message Bible), God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the People of Israel. Say to them, God bless you and keep you, GOD smile on you and gift you, God look you full in the face and make you prosper. In so doing, they will place my name on the People of Israel—I will confirm it by blessing them.”

(Verse 25 NIV), “the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;”

I am not sure which version I like better. God smiling on me is a wonderful picture. Who doesn’t like to have someone’s face light up with a big smile whenever you walk into the room? However, the words “His face shine on you” reminds me of the warmth and brightness of the sun. On a gloomy, overcast day, with moods grey as the sky, when the sun bursts forth from behind the clouds, something sings in my heart.

For too long, people have had a vision (a false one) of God being angry, a picture of a stern face and a disappointed Father. It’s not the kind of Father most people would want.

It’s time to get that lie of Satan out of our minds and out of our hearts. He (God, our true Father) is SMILING ON YOU! He is NOT angry, disappointed, or ashamed of you. He loves you, He is there to help you, and He wants only the best for you. He isn’t some distant deity that is watching on high to catch you doing something wrong. He is patiently waiting for you to give Him a place in your heart. He longs for you to return His love, just like a child to a father.

He is not frowning on me, my Heavenly Father is smiling on me!

See Him smiling on you.