Wednesday's Word: Endure to the End

 

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

 

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

 

God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.

 

So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.

James 1:2-8, 12-16 (NLT)

 

 

Troubles are allowed to give our faith the opportunity to grow. As we face our storms, we can freely ask of the Lord for wisdom to overcome. He will give us what we need, and all we have to do is trust Him with all our hearts not leaning on our own understanding. The Lord will bless us for enduring to the end. We are His prized children, and He will not keep any good thing from us.

Your Influence

The sign of a good leader is their ability to replicate themselves in others. Moses had Joshua. Elijah had Elisha. Jesus replicated Himself in His disciples. Paul helped Timothy grow as a leader.

In your life, who are you taking the time to pour into?

You may not consider yourself a leader on the same levels as the examples I've given, but you do have people watching you. You do have people who notice your good and bad habits. You do have people who notice your walk. It could be a coworker, your children, a neighbor, or a friend. Whoever it is, are you giving them a positive influence?

Take time this week to actively pour into another individual. Ask the Lord to show you who needs your positive influence. Ask Him to show you the right keys to place into someone else's hands.

As you focus on helping another person grow, you'll find yourself growing as well. As you share your wisdom, you'll learn some new things as well.

Don't keep all of your goodies to yourself! Go out and share what you have with those around you! You are full of priceless treasures that can be sown to produce a legacy that stands long after you are gone. Don't let the world miss out on your knowledge!

Verse of the Day: Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. Proverbs 27:17

Ask Away!

It's Monday morning, and I'm smiling! God is good.

Yesterday I had a good class with my teen ministry about the questions we have in life. At times it seems like all we have are questions and zero answers.

Why am I here and not where I want to be? Why do all these bad things keep happening? When will I arrive at my place of destiny? How am I supposed to reach that loft goal? Is God really listening to me when I pray?

I could go on, and on... and on.

I believe that when they are utilized appropriately, questions can be a helpful additive to our faith-walk. When we ask our questions of the right party, we have opportunities to gain wisdom, build relationship, and show the reality of our hearts.

The Bible lists several times when the disciples asked Jesus to clarify his parables and statements. Jesus always obliged letting them in on the wisdom behind his words. Had the disciples not asked their questions, they would have stayed in confusion.

When the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon (I Kings 10), she came to witness his famed wisdom personally. Yet through the process of posing her hard questions and having them answered by Solomon, she developed a relationship with him to the degree that she blessed him with riches and praised his God.

The entire book of Job is peppered with the questions he had while going through his great trial. He cried out to all who listened about his perplexitiy and confusion. He didn't understand what was going on, and his questions reflected the anguish of his heart.

We will always have questions about our lives. Not all of them will get answered. Don't be afraid to ask your questions. Being courageous enough to ask the questions opens up the door for knowledge and understanding to come in.

Verse of the Day: Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs 4:7

Guidance for Life

Joshua had Moses. Elisha walked with Elijah. Esther heeded the voice of Mordecai. The disciples followed Jesus. Timothy trained under Paul. In the Bible we can find countless examples of people who were brought into greatness by following the leadership of a great mentor.

Society is being geared to be more self-sufficient, self-discovering, and self-teaching. We like to be independent and figure things out on our own. If we don’t know something, we google it. If we have issues, we research possible solutions on our own. We want to have the credit for our success alone.

However, I believe that the mentor-mentee relationship is still relevant today. There are countless things that other people can show us that can help us to succeed in our endeavors. Someone has already been down the path that we are trying to embark on. There is something in another person's experience that can't be relayed in Wikipedia. Even if God has blessed us with something entirely new, something no one's ever done, there is still wisdom that one can glean from another human being.

All of us have the call of God on our lives, and we all want to please Him in fulfilling that mandate. Still, we should take some time to pray and ask the Lord to send us mentors who can help us to develop in our gifts and evade some mistakes we might otherwise make.

In the same manner, don’t be so selfish with all the knowledge that you’ve got inside of you! Open up your mouth, give up a little bit of your time, seek out someone who’s in need, and be a mentor yourself. We all have an experience, and from that experience we’ve gained some knowledge.

Give back to someone who’s coming up behind you. Open up to the one in front of you. And we all can help each other to become better people in this world.

Verse of the Day: Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight,
and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Proverbs 2:2-4