Monthly Archives: May 2017

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2 Helpful Truths When God’s Plan Seems Delayed

What helps you when God’s plan seems stalled?

Most mornings the national news seems downright depressing. Political corruption. Religious hypocrisy. Sexual disorientation. I confess, sometimes it’s tough to see God working in the world.

2 Helpful Truths When God’s Plan Seems Delayed

(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

We seldom ask the questions out loud. But we all think it: Where exactly is God working in this fallen world? Why does He seem so silent—and even distant?

We know the answers in our heads. The Bible gives us good ones:

  • God allows evil so that we may choose good. Yep. Got it. God is patient (2 Pet. 3:9).
  • God uses evil for His good purposes. Yes, of course. God is sovereign (Rom. 8:28).

These answers give an explanation for what we see. But what about what we don’t see?

How come there seems so little of God’s work in the world?

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How God Broadens Your Limited Perspective

Bridging the gap between the God we want and the God who is.

Have you noticed how often we tend to interpret our faith as we want it to be, rather than as God reveals it to be? I think of it this way. We have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist who only wants to see the highlights of the city.

How God Broadens Your Limited Perspective

(Photo: courtesy of Oomph)

Forget all the back alleys of New York. Show me Times Square. Let’s just jump to the Empire State Building. We focus on how the Christian life “ought” to be. (As if the tough parts are electives.)

A broad chasm stretches between the God we want and the God who is. Between the life we want and the life God wants for us.

As tough as it sounds, the only way to bridge this gap is the cross.

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God Lays Siege to Your Life to Restore You, Not Destroy You

The biblical sieges illustrate the Lord's love for His people.

In ancient Israel, a city wasn’t a city without a wall. The wall served as the primary means of protection from an enemy. Without a wall, you were a sitting duck.

When God Lays Siege to Your Life

(Photo: Jerusalem’s Old City Walls. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

In times of war, an enemy would surround a city wall and lay siege to it. This method purposed to starve the inhabitants of food and water—forcing surrender. Often a siege took months or even years. But it was very effective. All it took was time.

The sieges of ancient Israel serve as a fitting metaphor for what God often does in our lives when we erect walls to keep Him out. But there’s a key difference.

God lays siege to your life not to destroy you, but to restore you.

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How to Cope When God Conceals His Progress Bar of Time

As much as we’d rather know when, God has determined we only need to know what.

I recently upgraded my iPhone and had a problem transferring the data from my old backup to the new iPhone. So I called Apple.

Why God Doesn’t Show His Progress Bar

(Photo: Zach Vega. CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

As I talked to the tech during the data transfer, he really wanted to screen-share so he could see what was happening on my computer, but the connection wouldn’t work.

Because he couldn’t see my screen, he continued to ask me every minute or so what the status was on the progress bar. Finally, I said something like, “Look, asking me about it isn’t going to speed up the process. Feel free to work on something else, and I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

Did he think when it was done I would say nothing?

Then it struck me. We do the same with God.

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Do You Understand the 2 Kinds of Forgiveness?

A simple example serves to illustrate which of the two applies to you today.

The Bible’s teaching on forgiveness can seem confusing. Even contradictory. In fact, over the years I’ve heard one question more than any other.

Do You Understand the 2 Kinds of Forgiveness?

(Photo By Todd Quackenbush. Courtesy of Unsplash.com)

On one hand we have the marvelous promise that once we believe the gospel message—that Jesus died for our sins and rose again—we have forgiveness of all our sins.

All of them.

But that begs a question: If Jesus has already paid for our sins, why then does the Bible tell us to confess our sins for forgiveness?

It’s because the Bible teaches two kinds of forgiveness.

Do you understand the difference?

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What to Watch Out for When You Enter the Promised Land

Do you know the greatest danger of God’s blessings in your life?

Sometimes our blessings get piled so high, it’s difficult to see around them. Blessings are ours in abundance—and tempt us to forget God. Of course, this is nothing new.

What to Watch Out for When You Enter the Promised Land

(Photo: At the Plains of Moab, where Israel received God’s warning. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

At the Plains of Moab by the Jordan River, the redeemed Hebrew nation anticipated entering Canaan. There the Lord issued them an important warning:

When the Lord your God brings you into . . . great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you shall eat and be satisfied. Then watch yourself, lest you forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. —Deuteronomy 6:10-12

Notice God’s emphasis by the repeated phrase: “which you did not.” The blessings His people would receive would come from God’s hand—not from their own wits or wisdom.

Moses warned his people of the greatest danger from God’s blessings: to forget God.

We have that same vulnerability, don’t we?

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You May Have Failed—But God is Not Done with You

God’s truth seems too good to be true only because we’ve lived too long with lies.

I stood waist-deep in the Jordan River, waiting for the man I was about to baptize. He made his way slowly into the current, stopped in front of me, and looked me in the eye. “Are you sure I can be baptized?”

“What do you mean, Don?” I asked him. He had tears in his eyes.

Yes, You Failed—But God is Not Finished with You

(Photo: Jordan River baptismal site Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

With a trembling voice, this man in his sixties confessed to me a terrible sin he committed many years ago. He waited for my answer.

I’ll never forget that moment.

Let me ask you. If you could pick one event in your life you could go back and do it over, which would it be? If you’re like me, it would be tough to choose just one. We’ve all done things that have left us in deep regret. We mourn them like a death.

And while we can’t change the past, we also can’t ignore it.

Nor do we need to.

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30 Days in the Land of the Psalms

30 Days in the Land of the Psalms by Charles H. Dyer (Moody Publishers, 2017)

Many Christians read the Psalms every day but miss the fullness of their message. Why? The psalmists were poets, weaving images from the lands around them into the lines of Holy Scripture. Without a picture of what the Judean Wilderness looks like, or Masada, or the Mount of Olives, we read the words but miss so much of the message.

Dr. Charlie Dyer is one of the most gifted expositors of the Holy Land I’ve ever read. As you read 30 Days in the Land of the Psalms, you will picture the places of the poets.

This book will help you do more than merely read the Psalms.

You’ll see them.

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What Makes the Holy Land Holy? Or You, for that Matter?

The answer is the same.

Think about this question: What makes the holy land holy? Don’t rush by the question too quickly. Because its answer also explains what makes you holy in God’s eyes.

What Makes the Holy Land Holy? Or You, for that Matter?

(Photo: Painting of Moses and the burning bush. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

As often as we use the name, “Holy Land,” amazingly, the phrase only shows up in the Bible on rare occasions. In fact, you can count them on one hand.

The first man, Adam, had a name that means “man,” and it relates to the word adamah, meaning “ground,” from which God formed him. Accordingly, when Adam sinned, God cursed the ground to which Adam would return when he died. It seems surprising, then, that the first use of the noun form “holy” in the Hebrew Bible finds its connection with the ground. God told Moses at Horeb:

Remove your sandals, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. —Exodus 3:5

So, what makes the holy land holy? Or for that matter, what makes you holy?

Same answer.

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