"What’s Slowing You Down"?

17, June 2017

"What’s Slowing You Down"?

‘Let us strip off every weight that slows us down.’ Hebrews 12:1 NLT

The Bible says, ‘Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.  And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us’. What’s slowing you down, or tripping you up?  In life you only get to run once, so run to win. To avoid stumbling and losing your place in the race, don’t look back. You can’t change the past but you can learn from it.

Don’t be anxious about the next lap, just focus on the next step.  If you miss that, you may fall and not get up again.  Keep going, and before you know it you’ll have more laps behind you than ahead of you. Make every one count.

Many of us carry the weight and are worry of burdens. But older and wiser people have come to understand their burdens are of no real importance. We waste our strength extinguishing fires that, if left alone, would burn out on their own. Time is your most valuable resource.  Save it, and you’ve increased your assets and decreased your liabilities. Travel light. Ditch the baggage of self-sabotaging habits and pointless fears.

There are enough painful trials in life; why endure the ones you can ‘strip off’?  When blind Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was within reach, he threw off his coat so it wouldn’t trip him up, and ran towards Him. And his faith paid off:  ‘Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus’ (Mark 10:52 NKJV). You’ll never know how successful you can be until you get rid of the things that slow you down and trip you up.

"God Can Restore You"

01, May 2017

"God Can Restore You"

‘As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand'.  Jeremiah 18:6 NKJV

The prophet Jeremiah writes: ‘I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel.  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.  Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:  …“Can I not do with you as this potter”? says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand”’.  (Jeremiah 18:3–6 NKJV)

There are three important lessons in this story for you:

(1) As long as you stay pliable and responsive to God, He will never throw you away.  Instead, He will mould you into something He can use.

(2) When others put you down, God will lift you up.  A potter doesn’t press down on the clay, he continuously lifts it up and shapes it as it spins on the wheel.  And God will do that for you too.  David said, ‘He … brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps’ (Psalm 40:2 NKJV).

(3) Notice whose foot is on the wheel.  If he could, Satan would have thrown you off the wheel a long time ago, but he can’t.  Look under the table and see whose foot is on the wheel:  the Potter’s!  Nothing can separate you from God’s love (see Romans 8:39).

The word for you today is:  ‘As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand’.

"Keep The Fire Burning"

15, April 2017

"Keep The Fire Burning"

‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us …?’ Luke 24:32 NKJV

After the resurrection Jesus met two of His disciples who’d seen Him crucified and didn’t know He’d been raised from the dead. Then later as He ate supper with them at their house, an interesting thing happened: ‘Their eyes were opened … they knew Him … and they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”’ (Luke 24:31–32 NKJV)

This story has much to teach us about keeping the fire of love and devotion to Christ burning in our hearts. As you walk with Jesus and spend time in His presence, He talks to you and reveals Himself through the Scriptures. We all know that to keep a fire burning you must tend it, stoke it, and keep fueling it.

Why do some of us go on to higher heights and deeper depths in our walk with God, while others seem to go around in circles without getting anywhere?  Because one group commits itself to pursuing God until His presence becomes a daily reality in their lives, while the other group doesn’t. It’s that simple. The question is, which group are you in?  If you’re lukewarm and half-hearted in your walk with God, today He is saying to you, ‘Return to Me … and I will return to you’ (Zechariah 1:3 NKJV) .... Or in layman’s terms: ‘Turn around and come back ... You’ll find Me where you left Me.’

So the word for you today is:  keep the fire burning.