November 14, 2024
How do you lead people in faith when everything seems to be going in the opposite direction? When all the odds are against you? When others are distracting and contradicting the things you believe God wants to say? When it doesn’t seem to be working, although you feel that you are honestly following what God has told you to do?
A LONELY SHEPHERD
The book of Jeremiah is a record of the leadership of such a shepherd. God called him to be a prophet in a dark season in Israel’s history. His strong, prophetic words finally led him to be thrown into prison.
But all of his words from God came true. And people realized, after the judgment, that God had been speaking through Jeremiah. His faithfulness vindicated God.
WRESTLING WITH FAITH
Jeremiah, though, had moments of doubt where he questioned what God was doing. Chapters 14-15 record such a moment. And in the middle of Jeremiah’s questions and fears, God comes with a strong reminder of what Jeremiah’s posture should be. Here it is in the Amplified and New Living translations.
Every man of God’s great challenge is self-doubt. We wrestle with whether or not we’ve heard God properly and if we are leading in the right direction. No honest leader wants to misrepresent God. And we’re human. But God uses humans. He has made us in His image and calls us to rule over this world and the next with Him. He has made us like He is so we can join Him in what He does. That’s His way.
God awakened me at 2:30 am today because he needed me to receive this and deliver it to a faithful pastor I know who is facing a great faith challenge. An important moment in his ministry career. To call him to faith. To help him run through the tape believing God. If you think of it, pray for this unnamed pastor today that God might use His word to lift him and his people to fresh belief. The city in which he pastors desperately needs this church as a great gospel outpost for the kingdom.
Perhaps it’s also a word for you, as it is this morning for me too.
February 18, 2025
I have known many people who have had great joy and power in the midst of great suffering. It is humbling that the slightest inconveniences deter many of us from following God. We have not gotten to the bottom—settled the issue. Most often, we live for our comfort, reputation, or gain. When any of those goals are touched, we are troubled and discontent.
February 17, 2025
The repentant who finds God gains everything. “He who has God and everything else,” said C.S. Lewis, “has no more than he who has God alone.”
February 12, 2025
Repentance helps us. Repentance heals us. Repentance restores us and refreshes us. And these are all the outcomes a loving Father desires for His children.
