Month: August 2013

 

“Does it feel like you are stuck in a rut? Break out of that rut and come to this restaurant, or go to that vacation place. Or buy this. Or try this.”  Advertisers know that we want to change, but we don’t want to change.

The rut feels comfortable. We don’t have to think about what to do if we just keep doing the same thing we’ve always done.

The rut is easy. We can just slide along in life, day by day, living each day just like the last.

The rut is normal. Everybody’s doing it. It’s acceptable to the crowd.

The Israelites got in a rut, going around the same mountain, wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. God had delivered them out of Egypt, where they were slaves, but like one preacher said, Egypt was still in them. They had the “slave” mentality. They rebelled against God, almost as soon as they got out of town, and were doomed to wander around in the desert, going around and around the same mountain for forty years until the rebels all died.

Even so, the Children of Israel had it pretty good, even in the desert. God opened the waters of the Red Sea so they could cross over. He provided quail for meat and manna for daily food. If they were running out of water, God provided it out of the rock. If the water was poisoned, God gave them the solution in the form of a tree to toss into the water to neutralize it and make it drinkable. For all the 40 years they walked around in the desert, their sandals didn’t wear out and their clothes were just like new.

How long have you been going around the same mountain? It’s time for some changes in your life, maybe uncomfortable changes, but it will be good for you. God has a great plan for you, just like He had a great plan for the Isrealites.

The Lord spoke to them one day and said, “You have skirted this mountain long enough. Turn northward.” Deuteronomy 2:3 NKJV.  It was time for things to change.

God is telling you today, “It’s been long enough! Change directions. It’s time for things to change.”

 

 

 

 

When I want to remember something important, I write it on my hand. If I don’t do that to remind myself, I may not remember for days. That is an important  part of you, the palm of your hand. It is always right there in front of you, where it can be seen. You use your hands for everything, so if something is written on your hand, it would be hard to forget.

God has a tattoo of you on the palm of His hands. “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16 N IV

You are important to God. He wants to constantly be reminded of you. Every time He stretches out His hand to do something, He sees you. What a comfort! If God be for us, who can be against us? The very one who gave His only begotten Son thinks about you every time He looks at the palm of His hand.

Sometimes it might seem like you are all alone in the world, but Jesus will never leave you. You may have lost your last friend, but you have a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Jesus Himself said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I will go with you even to the end of the world.” I am never alone. He has promised never to leave me.

Engraved on God’s hand is a permanent reminder of me to God, tattooed onto God’s hand.

He couldn’t even forget me even  if He tried.

Lavon Hightower Lewis

I remember times I tried to argue with my mother when I was a child and she would say, “Are you disputing my word? Are you calling me a liar?” Her word was the final authority and what Mama said went.

There’s a lot of talk about faith these days. Discussions abound on what faith is, drawing on the famous Bible definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1, which says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence  of things not seen.”

Consider the woman mentioned in Hebrews 11, Sarah, wife of Abraham, mother of the Jewish race. The scriptures say she was given strength to conceive when barren and 90 years old because she considered Who had made the promise and determined Him to be true to His word.

She looked down one day at her 90-year-old body, which had been barren even when she was young, and she determined that it was impossible for her to have a baby. Then she looked up into the stars, and tried to number them, as God had told her husband. Then she considered the One who gave the promise—God Almighty, the Creator of the universe—and determined that He was reliable, trustworthy, faithful, and true to His word. Simply put, if God said it, He will do it, no matter how it looks on the surface.

She stopped doubting His word. That’s what faith is—not doubting, but believing everything God says. Anything less is sin, because it is the same as calling God a liar. “God is not a man that He should lie,” Num. 23:19.

If He has said He will do it, it will come to pass. There is no place for doubting or disputing His word. The Psalmist said, “Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven,” Ps. 119:89.

Faith is simply taking God at His word.