Christ Will Rescue You: September 2022

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

When We Don’t Trust God

Psalm 144:7-9(NLT)
"Come quickly, Lord, and answer me, for my depression deepens. Don’t turn away from me, or I will die. 8 Let me hear of our unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you. 9 Rescue me from my enemies, Lord; I run to you to hide me. 10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.”

I lost touch with Marcia when she moved to another state some years ago. I was concerned when I recently learned that she was going through a really difficult situation. Not knowing if she still had the same cell number, I decided to reach out to Marcia via text. She texted back, and I was so happy to hear from her, but I was struck by her words. They were chased and to the point. It was clear that she assumed I had heard about her financial problems and that she was dealing with a domestic violence situation. Rather than a phone call, in the text, she immediately tried to convince me that it wasn’t as bad as everyone says. It seemed that her pride was injured that I had reached out, and she wanted a “I’m handling things just fine” to be her final words to me.

For years, I’ve encouraged my friends through the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve offered Godly wisdom and compassion, and when the people that know me have a serious problem, very often I’m the first person they call. It’s been a tremendous blessing to me over the years, because I’m passionate about being helpful in any way that I can. It’s possible that Marcia’s disappointment was so overwhelming that she wasn’t yet able to find a place for hope and didn’t want to hear anything about it. But God reminds us that we can make a much better choice than cutting hope out of the picture, and this better choice will greatly benefit our lives.

In Romans 15:13(NLT), the Apostle Paul prayed a very beautiful and powerful prayer about the hope that God gives us. He said, “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” God will never force our hand. He will not make us choose to trust Him and believe in His love. He’s left this completely up to us. God tells us to meet Him in a place of hope and faith, and He will do the rest. But if we choose to leave God out of our situations and circumstances, we’re making a huge mistake.

Our Heavenly Father has chosen us as His kids, and He wants to be involved in every aspect of our lives. He knows that we’ll make mistakes, and He will not stop loving us because we sin. Our mistakes and problems are not too big for Him, and He tells us in 2Corinthians 12:8(NLT), “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” God is always willing and able to help us, and when our world continues to spiral out of control, we can have every assurance that He has our backs. Psalm 18:30(NLT) says, “God’s way is perfect. All the LORD’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.”

The storms and troubles of life can make us feel weak, but we must remember that God is our strength from day to day. When we don’t trust God through our tough times, we separate ourselves from Him, because we don’t have faith in His love and power. Doubt is our greatest enemy, and our lack of faith causes us to fall, but when we place all our trust in God, He will never disappoint us. He said in Isaiah 41:10(NLT) says, “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.”

God wants you to be victorious and happy in everything you attempt to do. He’s 100% in your corner, and with Him on your side, you cannot fail. Many of us have a difficult time surrendering and letting go. We think that if we surrender the situation over to God and take our hands off it, things might go haywire. Just the opposite is true. Jesus Christ invites us to come to him and give him all our problems. We desperately need God’s guidance, because He will lead us to peace and safety. He wants us to wholeheartedly trust him, as we remember and believe in all the wonderful blessings He’s given through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God wants us to win in life, and when we believe this, He will help us to overcome and triumph over adversity. He loves us, and through the hope that Jesus Christ gives, we can choose to be overcomers through God’s strength and power. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

The Danger of a Bad Attitude

Galatians 6:7-8(NLT)
“7 Don’t be misled, you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. 8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

Many of God’s children are plagued by the consequences of bad choices and decisions. Whether it’s getting involved with the wrong person, making poor financial decisions or the fallout from having a bad attitude, the wrong choices in life can set us back, but a bad attitude will keep us stuck. This one is a hard pill to swallow for many of God’s children, but it’s true. Galatians 6:7 tells us not to be deceived, because God is always on point and always on the case; He makes sure that whatever we sow, that’s what we’re going to reap. This means that whatever we put out there, it’s coming back to us. Rather than sowing a good crop by planting goodness into this earthly environment, a bad attitude causes us to cultivate a cycle of negative consequences. It can be a vicious negative cycle hurling back to us consequences that mirror the same bad attitude we put out there. We can stop this, and we should.

God commands us in Ephesians 4:31(NLT), “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.” God tells us to get rid of these heavies because they weigh us down and keep us from living the more than abundant life that Jesus Christ made available. Bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander are at the root of a bad attitude, and they come from our hearts.

Proverbs 4:23-24(NLT) tells us, “23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. 24 Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech.” Most of us fail to gauge the magnitude of this wisdom. We fail to realize that with everything we do, think, and say, we are either adding or subtracting from the foundation of our lives. If we put it out there, there is no possible way that it’s not coming back to us. So, we need to be incredibly observant of how and what we express. God does not control our actions. He has given us free-will, and it is up to us to choose how we behave. He has empowered us with everything we need to guard our hearts, and it is our responsibility to make sure we get rid of the toxins that hold us back.

In Luke 6:38(NLT), Jesus Christ taught, “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” Jesus is instructing us about God’s law of giving and receiving. Giving begins a boomerang of goodness. This is the way God created the universe to function and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. When we give and pour into the lives of others with the love of Christ, that love is going to be returned to us, and it will be returned to us pressed down, shaken together, and running over; in other words, it will come back to us in greater proportion than it was given. Another truth that we must also know about this law is that it works the exact same way when we give out the bad stuff—like negative attitudes, slanderous and hurtful words, and malicious deeds. Just like the good stuff, the bad stuff will come back to us in greater quantity than it was initially given.

Relationships should be reciprocal in nature. As we love the person that is dear to us with the love of Christ in our hearts, they should be giving this back to us. However, sometimes there’s such a heavy accumulation of negativity that neither person gives the other a chance. The partners don’t know how to hit the pause button on toxic routines, and this means that neither are allowing Christ to lead and guide them. When a couple does not place Christ in his rightful place as head of the relationship, the two cannot be bonded in the unity of his peace and blessings.

Jesus Christ commands us in 1Corinthians 11:1 to be imitators of his example. 1Peter 2:22 tells us that God called us for the purpose of doing good, even if it means we have to be uncomfortable, or that we can’t have the last word. God tells us that Christ is our example and we must follow in his steps. In Ephesians 5:25(NLT), He commands, “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” God is commanding the husband to begin a loving cycle of giving and receiving by loving his wife just as Christ loves us all and gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins.

Admittedly, many men do not hold themselves to God’s standard. Often it is because they don’t know it. This is why it is so important to get God’s greenlight before we marry someone. If they don’t honor God through His standards and have a desire to create a loving relationship that is full of God’s peace, they could potentially reap havoc on your existence. Pray often and stay close to God when it comes to choosing the right person for your life. Pray and ask the Father for someone that has a loving attitude and make absolutely sure you have one yourself.■

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

The Promise of Deliverance

In Hosea 4:6, God said that His people are being destroyed because they lack knowledge about Him; they refuse to know Him. Our Heavenly Father is informing us that what we don’t know about Him and His nature can severely hinder or destroy our lives. From very early on, we are taught to believe that we should make our own choices and decisions without God's help, and we are taught that we can become whatever we want. It doesn’t take long in life to realize that this line of thinking isn’t a winning strategy. Without the help of our Heavenly Father, some of us make choices and decisions that send us down the wrong path. We’re sometimes devastated by the choices and decision we make in life. The truth is that we can’t become whatever we want, but we can become the men or women that God has destined us to be if we surrender totally to His guidance and direction.

In Exodus 6:7-9(NLT), God told the people of Israel, “7 I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. 8 I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the LORD!’” 9 So Moses told the people of Israel what the LORD had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.” This is a lesson in what not to do.

The passage in Exodus 6:7-9 is taken from the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament. During Old Testament times, God’s people, the people of Israel, were servants of God. They were not sons and daughters of God the way that we are today, because during that period, Jesus Christ had not yet come to the earth. Jesus Christ said in John 14:8(NLT), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” He is the way to our Heavenly Father, and before the ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of Christ, a way to become a child of God did not exist.

God chose the people of Israel to be His very own people, but they didn’t have the kind of relationship with Him that He wanted. God had delivered them from the tyranny of Egyptian slavery, and He planned to give them their very own land, the Promised Land, “the land of milk and honey.” When Moses told the people what God had promised to do for them, they refused to believe what God said. They turned their backs on Him and ignored His Word. They didn’t trust God, and because of this, they continued to make terrible choices and decisions.

Because of the hardships of slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel refused to step outside the walls of fear and doubt. God wanted to guide them to deliverance, but they would not have faith in God’s goodness, and because of this, the older generation died off without ever setting foot on the Promised Land. The older ones who refused to trust God wandered round in the dessert for 40 years, and like them, many of us are wandering about as well. We have refused to trust God’s promises, and therefore, we live beneath our privilege.

God doesn’t want any individual to experience domestic violence and abuse. It is not His Will for our lives. Jesus Christ tells us in John 10:10(NLT), “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” The "thief" that Jesus Christ tells us about in this verse is satan, the devil, and the devil aims to destroy us by keeping us ignorant about God’s love for us. Messing with our minds by causing us to doubt God's Word and goodness is his number one tactic. We must resist this and not do as the people of Israel did when they hardened their hearts and refused to believe God’s promise.

Jesus Christ came to the earth to give us a rich and satisfying life. He made this available to us because this is what God wants for every person. In situations of domestic violence and abuse, our emotions as well as the suffering we have experienced can turn our thoughts to the confusion of doubt and fear. It is important for us to trust that God is a God of love, and all power is in His hands. He will guide us to deliverance and wants us to send an invitation for His divine and powerful intervention. In order to do this, we must resist the urge to sink to the depths of sadness and hopelessness. Instead, we must trust God’s promise of deliverance and know that He is faithful to help us change our lives.■