God is aware of and concerned with every aspect of our being … physical, mental, emotional financial, and perhaps most important of all spiritual. God wants us to be spiritually fit and the best way to do that is to walk with Him and with His Word as we travel over the hills and valleys of life.

The problem, though, for most of us is that we get diverted by more worldly things and lose sight of the presence of God in our lives. I recently went to a website to look up some information. When I pressed a certain icon, a dialogue box popped up to tell me I was being “redirected” to another website.

I thought about the spiritual application of that and realized that when the matters of the world cloud my spiritual vision, I need to redirect my thoughts to focus on what God is telling me in each situation I face in life. For example:

When I feel all alone, I should redirect myself to Hebrews 13:5 “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

When I am fearful, I should redirect myself to Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.”

When I feel weak, I should redirect myself to Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

When I am torn between following the ways of the world or the ways of the Lord, I should redirect myself to Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

When I feel lost, I should redirect myself to Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For, everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

When I feel inadequate in knowing God’s will for my life, I need to redirect myself to Psalm 86:11 “Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart.”

When I am tempted by the world, I should redirect myself to 1 Peter 5:8  “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”

Father God, Your Holy Word is truly the roadmap for life. Throughout the days ahead please help me to make a conscious effort, in every situation, to redirect myself to Your Word and find the strength and power to walk as You would walk. Amen.

Get to know God better with a life lesson: Portraits of Christ

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” (Revelation 4:8)

Do you realize that there has never been, nor will there ever be, a time in your life when God is not present?

God revealed Himself as eternally existent when He sent Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. He told Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)

In the book of Revelation, God describes Himself in this way, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)

Jesus confirmed this reality when He said in the New Testament, “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8:58)

Do you see the implications of the reality that God is, was and will be?

It means that God can redeem your past. He was there. He can take your mistakes, your poor decisions and even the atrocities inflicted on you and transform them into instruments that bring good into your life.

It means that God can fulfill your present. A dead-end job or monotonous existence isn’t an overwhelming obstacle for God’s power. He can use your current situation, whatever it is, to draw you closer to Him and help you experience the abundant life that He gives.

It means that God can transform your future. Feelings of hopelessness, that your situation will never change, or that nothing will ever go right, aren’t based on truth. When God is in the equation, anything is possible.

Holy God, knowing You are always present gives me great assurance. May we join with the heavenly beings and never stop saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” (Revelation 4:8) Amen.

Questions: What does knowing God is there – past, present and future – do for your thinking? What will you ask God to redeem, fulfill or transform?

And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword. Isaiah 49:2 (NKJV)

Jesus is described as “having a sharp two edged sword in His mouth” (Rev.1:16), which is the Word of God. It is by the Word that Jesus stood against the temptations of the devil, and demonstrated the power of God through many works, and it is the Word of God that we are to use as a mighty weapon through prayer to do the greater works that God is calling us to.

In the beginning God “spoke” and creation came into being. As the children of God we are admonished to ‘speak to the mountain’ (Mark 11:23) and it will obey us and move, and that we are to declare a thing and it will be established for us (Job 22:28). That’s the impact that prayer has.

God’s Word is unchanging and packs unfathomable power. When we wield it as our sword in prayer, we are using a powerful spiritual weapon that brings down the strongholds in our personal lives and in the world around us. Faith and God’s Word work together, and faith comes by hearing the Word (Rom. 10:17). When we meditate on the Word, allow it to take strong root in our spirits, we sharpen our prayer sword. The more we have the Word rooted in us the more powerful our prayers are to hit the target, as they are backed up by a confidence (faith) that God will act according to His promises.

As we enter into the winter season, it is our prayer that the FACTS verses will help root God’s abundant promises into your spirit, draw you to a greater skill level of prayer using the Word as a weapon, and build up your faith and confidence that our God is faithful and reliable to deliver according to His Word.

Jesus working through us, the church, is the worlds only hope. God has given us the power and dominion to bring change; let’s take our swords in hand and wield them with skill and authority in the mighty name of Jesus!

So shall My word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11 (NKJV)

“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” Hebrews 10: 35-36

Do you sometimes get discouraged?  You’ve worked and prayed for so long and nothing much seems to be happening. Frankly, you’re fed up with waiting.  I know the feeling. One day as I was looking at a promise highlighted in my Bible, I grumbled, “Lord Jesus, you gave me that promise years ago and nothing has happened yet.”

Then a cheerful thought came to me, you’re that much closer to the answer then.

All God’s heroes experienced long waiting periods. Abraham went through thirteen years of silence before the fulfillment of a promise from God.  His son Isaac waited twenty years for Rebecca to have children. Moses’ vision of delivering his people from Egyptian bondage lay buried forty years in the desert. And I could go on. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not of displeasure. Wait periods give us an opportunity to grow our faith.

Faith knows of a certainty that God has His moment and in that precise given time everything yields to his will.

If faith comes to a closed gate, she is not disheartened; faith waits without until God touches the lock and it flies open.

Faith knows some Jerichos need to be compassed about seven times before the victory comes. Kathryn Kuhlman

The race is not always to the swift but to those who keep running. They are the ones who receive the prize.

Dear God, give me the strength and the faith to persevere to the end. Amen.

Question: Who do you know and can turn to for encouragement when you feel like giving up?

About this Author: Helen Grace Lescheid

Please open your Bible and read: Psalm 46

Is there a trial that you have been facing for a long period of time? You may wonder if you can continue. During his lifetime, Charles Spurgeon suffered many trials. Depression was just one of the “thorns” that God allowed him to endure. However, some of the richest teaching we have today from him was written and preached during times of stress and pressure. Let the following words of Spurgeon reassure you that God is truly your keeper.

“Perhaps, O tired soul, the Lord is doing this to develop thy graces. There are some of thy graces which would never have been discovered if it were not for the trials. Dost thou not know that thy faith never looks so grand in summer weather as it does in winter?

“Hope itself is like a star – not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity. Afflictions are often the black folds in which God doth set the jewels of His children?s graces, to make them shine the better … God often sends us trials that our graces may be discovered, and that we may be certified of their existence.”

When facing adversity, ask God to show you what He wants you to learn from the situation. Submission to the trial does not equal defeat. In fact, it proves to be the opposite. God uses adversity to teach us more about Himself and then to lead us on to greater blessing.

Question: What adversity have you been facing recently? Where does God fit into these struggles?

About this Author: Charles Stanley (quoting Charles Spurgeon)

“Loving God means doing what He tells us to do, and really that isn’t hard at all; for every child of God can obey Him, defeating sin and evil pleasure by trusting Christ to help him” 1 John 5:3,4

I believe that we are on the threshold of witnessing the greatest spiritual revival in the history of the church. I believe that the Great Commission will indeed be fulfilled before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:19,20).

Today, however, because of the subtle ways of the world system, there are more carnal Christians than at any other time in history. But the Bible tells us that the tide will turn and that the church will soon enter its finest hour.

We are beginning to see that turning of the tide. More and more Christians are discovering how to live supernaturally in the power and control of the Holy Spirit. The gospel is being spread throughout the world by many committed Christians who are determined, by faith, to help fulfill the Great Commission in this generation, whatever the cost.

I do not know anyone, however, who loves this world system who has ever been used of God in any significant way. There is nothing wrong with money and other material success. However, we are to wear the cloak of materialism loosely. We are to set our affection on Christ and His kingdom, not on the material things of this world.

The Lord left us with this wonderful promise … “every child of God can obey Him, defeating sin and evil pleasure by trusting Christ to help him.” Inviting Christ to help us is our decision to make. It is simply a matter of the will.

Bible Reading: 1 John 5:1-8

Today’s Action Point: I will obey God and trust Christ to defeat sin and evil pleasure in my life, so that I can live a supernatural life and help take His gospel to all men throughout the world.

About this Author: Bill Bright

I am a mother,  but I don’t have a child to hug. I can’t brag about my baby’s first steps, the first day of school or graduation.  I have no photographs.  But I am a mother.  My children are in heaven.

After only two months of “trying” my husband and I were thrilled when our first pregnancy test came up positive.  We couldn’t believe our good fortune.  Although I was terribly sick throughout the first trimester, our enthusiasm for this new journey never wavered.

Life and death

After experiencing extreme stomach growth in my second trimester, we were relieved – although slightly overwhelmed – to discover at 18 weeks that we had not one, but two little ones growing in my womb.  We embraced the news with enthusiasm, albeit slightly tempered by the knowledge of the road ahead.   Things were definitely about to change.  Fortunately, we didn’t really know what the road ahead held.

Just prior to 20 weeks – after only 2 weeks of getting to know our twins — our world was shattered when my water broke, and I went into pre-term labour.  To this day the words I heard that night echo in my head.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do.”

That night I held my sweet baby girls for the first and last time.

Everything stripped away

After losing our girls – Avery and Sophie – my life consisted of doing what I needed to in order to survive.  I wandered around with empty arms and an empty heart.  My saggy stomach and full, aching breasts were just some of the reminders of the dreams that had been lost so quickly.

Although I was functioning in the most basic sense of the word, in the months that followed I felt like  I was drowning.  Nothing could pull me out.  I was angry, confused and struggling to deal with my grief.  I felt very alone.

Everything I used to identify myself my was stripped away. My job, which I had found so fulfilling only days before, felt empty.  Instead of being something I eagerly talked about and engaged in, it was a chore.  I had to go, but found no joy in it.

I was still a wife, but even that couldn’t take the smallest edge off the pain.  My husband had an unbreakable commitment that sent him across the country for six months.   Although still part of a couple, I was completely on my own.   And he was alone too, working through his grief in hectic and unfamiliar surroundings.

What I knew about God

In this very dark place I found myself questioning God for the first time in my life.  I am a logical person, and have lived my life that way.  To me, if God says it, it is true.  Therefore, there is no room to question. But in the months following the loss of our daughters, I fought to reconcile what I knew about God with what I felt about Him.

I knew that He loved me and had a plan for my life (Jeremiah 29:11).  I knew that He had promised to never leave me or forsake me (Joshua 1:5).  But I no longer felt either to be true. I felt that by questioning Him, He would certainly walk away from me – if He had not already done so.

I realized that some of these promises I knew about God had a big “if” attached to them in my mind. In my thinking, however unintentionally, the promises were conditional.  God would never leave me or forsake me if I never got angry with Him.  He would never turn his back on me as long as I never shouted questions at Him.

In a time where all I could find was anger and questions when I spoke to God, I was sure that He had turned his back on me.  In my mind He had every right to do so.  My journal was filled with anguish, raw emotions, and fury.

God’s promises do not change

As time went on, God clearly showed me that He had never left.  Instead, He waited until I was ready for Him.  He showed me how He had walked the journey with me.  Only then did I realize the full extent of what He meant with His promises.

Not only did He refuse to leave – He was an active participant in my life.  He cried as I shouted in pain, He sheltered me when I could take no more.  He whispered encouragement when I lay alone in the dark at night.  It was only as I stepped away that I felt the separation.  I created the distance between us,  He never did.

God’s promises are not conditional. The strength of His promise lies in what He can do, not what I do.  I can choose to distance myself from God. I can have unconfessed sin in my life that takes away the closeness of our relationship, but I cannot alter the truth of His promises.   My questions cannot lessen who He is.  My times of doubt do not diminish His strength.

I know now that when my heart cries out in unendurable pain, the sound of it does not drive Him away.  He pulls in close and whispers the promises I have read so many times but am only beginning to truly understand.  He loves me in ways I haven’t even dream of yet and He will never leave me.

As my husband an I walk our journey of grief a year and a half after the loss of our girls, I continue to see that God is walking every step along with us.  He walked through the shock and raw pain of our initial loss.  He was there as the ache of another pregnancy loss shook us to the core.  He is still journeying with us as we deal with all the emotions that a third pregnancy has brought along.  And I know, regardless of the outcome, that he will continue to walk this journey with us.  God is bigger than my questions.  His promises do not change. As I place my life in His hands, I will not be disappointed.

More Personal Stories
Unreasonable joy: Heather’s mom walked her own journey
Unthinkable loss: Miscarriage and stillbirth