Mercy and Grace

Mercy and Grace

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach God s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. 

 

When you come to God, come boldly and confidently and with extreme emotion because He knows what you are carrying, and you will receive mercy every single time.  Mercy is Jesus standing outside the tomb of Lazarus already knowing that He is going to raise Lazarus from the dead and that everything is going to work out.  Yet before He intervenes, He pauses and weeps (John 11:35).  Everyone watching said, Look how much He loved Lazarus.  Why did He pause and weep?  It is because your Savior understands, and He is not too big and busy to feel what you feel.  Mercy is, I know, and I am not angry at you for feeling it. Keep bringing it to me every single time, and my response to you is going to be MERCY!  Sometimes it is going to be tangible mercy, and it is going to take the pressure off. Sometimes it is going to be the intangible thing that comes from knowing that my Heavenly Father knows, and that will be enough.

 

There is a second thing that you get every single time and that is the GRACE to help you in your time of need.  Grace in this context is the strength and the energy to endure.  God has not promised to deliver us from our circumstances, but He has promised us to be with us through them.  God says, Sometimes I am going to take the pressure off and intervene in your circumstances, but I can promise you every single time to give you the grace, strength, and power to endure if you will come to me. Do not give up on me just because you could not fine me in the circumstances of life.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

In This World

In This World

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is in the excerpt.

 

If God has not promised to make us rich, to answer all of our prayers, to keep bad things from happening to us, then what has He promised?  John 16:33 says . . . In this world you will have trouble. . .  Anytime a pastor or leader promises you a life without trouble, that's not what Jesus modeled or taught. 

 

Hebrews 4:14-15 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  The high priest is the person that represents us to God.  To empathize is to say that I have been there and done that, and I know exactly how that feels.  When you are talking to Jesus, He knows exactly what you are going through and what it feels like.

 

Jesus was tempted in every single way that you have been tempted.  He has felt what you have felt and has faced what you have faced.  Jesus spent a night dreading the events of the following day.  Your Savior spent the night knowing that the next day He would be tried, beaten and crucified.  He experienced the rejection and the betrayal of His closest friends, and some of you know what that is like.  Jesus watched as His closest friends ran away in front of Him, and He listened as the person that He invested the most time in denied knowing Him three times.  He has experienced the rejection of a family member, and He saw everything He worked so hard and lived so intently for crumble around Him.  He experienced crushing temptation, and He knows about the temptations you face. 

John 16:33  . . . In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I (Jesus) have overcome the world.

Champions, have a great couple of weeks!-David Vining

 

What God Has Not Promised

What God Has Not Promised

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is Matthew 5:45 God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

 

We really would like to use God and get Him to do what we want.  When you read the Bible, you will find that God cannot be shrunk down into a little box that we can manipulate and get Him to cooperate with us.  If you ever decide to embrace Christianity, then you need to look at what God has not promised you.  Most of the men who had the greatest faith in Jesus were martyred, persecuted, stoned or beaten.  They had incredible faith, and bad things still happened to them.  God has not promised to keep bad things from happening to those that believe in Him.  If something bad happens to you, that does not mean that God does not care about you or that He does not love you. 

 

None of the people that were closest to Jesus became wealthy because of their faith.  There was nothing in it for them, yet they continued to have this extraordinary faith in Jesus.  So why did they continue to believe?  They would say, I saw this guy on a cross, and three days later we had lunch.  I do not know if there is anything in this for me or not, but I am just telling you what I saw.  I am just going to go with the guy that rose from the dead.

 

Jesus went around and healed lots of people, but He did not heal everybody.  Every once in a while even now Jesus heals someone miraculously, but it is not the norm.  God has not promised to heal everyone, and He has not promised to reverse the consequences of your bad decisions.  Sometimes you get a break, but He does not promise to rescue you from the consequences of your sin.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Circumstantial Faith

Circumstantial Faith

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time. . .

 

Two things that erode faith faster than anything else are lifestyle decisions that eventually impact what we believe and unexplainable circumstances where God does not seem to do what we think that God ought to do.  Circumstantial faith is, I am believing and trusting in God based on my ability to find God in my circumstances.  Example:  When you were 12 years old and your Mom or Dad told you that this is how you are supposed to behave with a young man or woman, you believed them.  Then when you got older and moved to the big city, that did not seem to be so practical anymore.  Nobody else was behaving that way, so you abandoned what you were taught because of your circumstances.  It was circumstantial faith.

 

The pleasures of life will cause almost every single element of your belief system to become inconvenient.  If your faith is pure circumstantial, you will opt for pleasure over faith every single time, and you will adjust your belief system to match your lifestyle.  It means that what you have believed is not worth believing and that what you believe today is not worth believing tomorrow.  None of that is a problem until you come to a place in life where you really need to have some belief to lean on.  If all you have is circumstantial faith, eventually your faith will not hold up.

 

The foundation of Christianity is not an experience or your ability to make the world make sense.  It is not an event or an answered prayer with God, but the thing that we lean on is history.  Two thousand years ago a person, Jesus Christ, performed miracles, died on a cross, was raised from the dead, and was seen by over 500 people.  He claimed to be the one who represents us to God.  The foundation of our faith is a person, Jesus Christ. 

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining