Why trust when you can worry!?!

“God has great things in store for His people; they ought to have large expectations.”   Charles Spurgeon

  If you’re like most people, you probably worry about your weight.  That might not be at the top of your list, but according to a recent survey, that’s the #1 concern for most people. Here are the Top Ten Worries (counting down from #10 to #1) according to this survey: #10 Diet. #9 Job security. #8 Rent/mortgage payment. #7 Credit card debt. #6 Low energy level. #5 Overdrafts and loans. #4 Overall fitness. #3 Lack of savings/financial future. #2 Growing old. #1 Being overweight.

  Yet, notice something about this list. First, these concerns primarily fall into two categories – health and finances. Second, these are universal human concerns. Finally, these are issues which will be with us as long as we live. You’re going to have to die in order to stop being concerned about your money and your health.

  Have you ever wondered how much time you spend worrying? It’s probably more than you think. That same survey asked people how much time they spend worrying and here’s what they discovered. Each week, we spend 14.31 hours worrying. That equals 744 hours of worry each year, which turns into 45,243 hours of worry over a lifetime, which equals 1885 days in a lifetime spent doing nothing but worrying. Ultimately, we spend 5.2 years of life enslaved by worry. Is it any wonder that we have trouble sleeping? Or, that we feel under so much pressure and often find it so hard to concentrate? For most of us, it’s not just one thing, it’s multiple concerns all wrapped up together. It’s our job, school, money, work, health, bills to pay, your husband, your wife, your ex, the in-laws, the kids…on and on it goes. Any one issue we could handle or even two, but when you get three or four together, your knees start to buckle.

  To worry is to “give way to anxiety or unease; allow one’s mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles.” The word comes from the Old English wyrgan, which means “to strangle or to seize by the throat.” That’s a helpful image, because we’ve all felt the pressure of worry choking us, squeezing the life out of us. Some folk who are consumed by worry will wonder if they’re possibly having a heart attack because of a tightness in their chest.

  Yet, God has called us to be the people of faith. Faith and worry are arch enemies. Worry is the enemy of a relationship with God. You can’t go to heaven without taking God at His Word, that the death of His Son, Jesus was sufficient to pay for all of your sins. If you want God’s blessing, His approval on your life…if our church wants His blessing, then we must trust Him. Hebrew 11:6 admonishes us that “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” What does it mean then to live by faith, to truly trust God? The consistent pattern of God’s Word is that….

  Trusting God means that we’re obedient. The life of faith isn’t complex. It begins with obeying the truth we already know. It means repenting of sin and doing what we know the Bible teaches is right. It means consistently reading the instruction manual, the Bible.

  And true faith always leads to decisive action. Noah believed God and built an Ark. Abraham left everyone and everything he knew because God told him to. The early church shared a message that cost them, not just their livelihood, but often their lives. So what are the areas of obedience that you’re neglecting? You won’t be free from worry until you first obey. God’s blessings are on those who obey.

  Wonderfully, those who trusted God left behind an inheritance of faith. Each of us is given just one life. We leave behind an abundance of memories for those who love us. So what will your family and friends, your children and grandchildren know about a life of faith by their memories of your life? How will you be remembered? Will you be remembered for your faith?

  Living by faith can be like driving in a fog. When driving though a heavy fog, you can’t see that far in front of you but you keep on driving anyway, believing that what you can’t see, you will see once you get there. When you move forward one hundred feet, you can see one hundred more feet than you could not see before. Thus, you keep going until you reach your destination, driving by faith.

  Trusting God means that we’re patient. Many believers in the Bible and even throughout Church History didn’t see the fruition of their faith in their lifetime. God promised Abraham that he’d be the father of a great nation. When he died, he only had Isaac…not exactly a great nation. But God kept His promise.

  Satan tempts us to live for the here and now, to focus and worry about today. We spend money and time seeking to ward off poor health and death. We save for retirement and build up our 401Ks…and there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re not a fool and living only for temporary healthy and wealth. When our focus is just on the possessions of the here and now, they distract us from the walk of faith. Living for this world is like preserving and storing up the leaves which are going to fall off the trees in a few weeks. If you’re a believer, this world is not your home. You’re just a leaf on a tree, here today…gone tomorrow. Wise people in faith live for the eternal Home built by God. But it means waiting, not as long as most of us think, yet it still means waiting in faith, trusting God.

  Sometimes we feel like our lives have been put on hold. Waiting is one of the godly life’s greatest disciplines. As we wait in faith for the fulfillment of God’s promises, we must remember that “waiting time is never wasted time.” God is working even while we wait. Sometimes He’s testing us and growing us spiritually. True faith is waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises in His timing, and He always keeps His promises.

  Trusting God means that we’re willing to sacrifice. True faith is always willing to sacrifice. Abraham demonstrated that willingness when he laid on the altar the most precious thing in his life, his son. What’s the most important thing in your life? God will never settle for being second place in your life. He’s only interested in being in first place in your life and won’t settle for anything less.

  Corrie Ten Boom said that she’d learned to hold the things of this world loosely in her hand, because she knew that if she grasped them tightly, the Lord would have to pry her fingers away and it would hurt. Is there anything you’re clinging to, trying to withhold from God? Is there anything that it’s going to hurt if God has to pry it out of your hands?

  Jesus must be Lord of all or He’s not Lord at all. You and I will never give up anything for God that God will not repay many, many times over. True faith means that we’re obedient, patient and willing to sacrifice. 

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So how do you REALLY do with change?

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.” Isaac Asimov

  I like to think of myself as someone who adapts and even embraces change. I think I may be self-deluded. Maybe it’s when you’re forced to change, when you have no input or control, that change becomes more frustrating…I’m not sure. Yet, two small changes in my life really frustrated me. When I share them, you’ll probably think I’m silly. I was. One of them I knew was very temporary, yet it still irritated me.

  Recently, they’ve been doing road work near our home. To do this, they shut down County W for two weeks. Now I have no idea what they were doing. Now that it’s completed, I’m still not sure what they did. But I knew that it inconvenienced me. That’s the route I take when I drive to Burlington. Closing it down meant I had to change my route. It meant I had to plan ahead because it was going to take a little longer. It meant I couldn’t go into autopilot and had to actually think when I drove.

  That’s probably what I found the most frustrating. I’ve driven that route so many times, my mind goes into neutral. I hardly give it a second thought…until they closed the road. Too many times I still didn’t give it a second thought, until I was halfway down the road, and realized it was closed. I had to turn around to go another route. I wish I could say it only happened once or twice, it was probably half a dozen. I was so happy when the work was complete and I could go back to my old, familiar routine. The small change was giving me a big headache. 

  The second big change for me was at the Wellness Center. Because of vacation and my hectic schedule, I’d missed a few days. While I was absent, they discarded the elliptical machine I use every time I go. It was over fifteen years old and was too costly to repair. There’s a reason though I used that particular machine. While there are several other elliptical machines, I don’t like them. I liked MY machine! In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t like going to the Wellness Center. You probably know some exercise fanatic…maybe you’re one. I’m not. I hate going to the Wellness Center. It’s not that I detest exercising, though it’s not my favorite thing to do, it’s the time. It seems like the time there drags slower than a snail moving through peanut butter.  

  So for me, the best way to endure the tedium is to read. I crank up my music and read away. Before I know it, I’m done. That was the problem. The best machine for me to use while I read was the one they retired. It had just the right angle so I could set up my book and read. Now I’m having to learn new machines with new settings. It’s a balancing act, as I get my book in place, read and exercise all at the same time. The new machines seem to have been designed for taller people, not someone horizontally challenged like myself. It’s became so frustrating, that if I wasn’t a member and didn’t really, really like the staff, I’d find another fitness club. All of these seemingly little changes were a big hassle for me.

  As I was mulling my resistance to change over, it struck me that I do fairly well with change if it doesn’t require much from me, in this particular case, to invest much mental effort. For example, I love trying new restaurants, yet there’s a sense of the familiar there – menu, wait staff, food, etc. If I don’t like it, I can leave. Yet, with these two changes, I had no choice. I was forced to change and I didn’t like it.

  Every day we face change. Our culture is going through cataclysmic changes…some good, some bad. As Christians, we’re committed to righteousness, yet we find ourselves in the midst of moral tsunamis. We feel frustrated and overwhelmed with all of the changes. Psalms 11:3 asks a powerful question about cataclysmic spiritual changes, one maybe you’ve also asked, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

  The great Bible expositor, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, pointed out that the real answer is: What can they not do in the Lord? He pointed out that "when prayer engages God on our side, and when faith secures the fulfillment of promise, what cause can there be for flight, however cruel and mighty our enemies?" Yes, moral absolutes and biblical values are under attack. The foundations are being destroyed; the culture is dramatically changing and not for the good. Yet, many of us have failed to realize, have forgotten, or just don’t believe that there are any resources left. The Bible reminds us that, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The world changes; Jesus never does. He’s not surprised by the changes that threaten to sink our little ships. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, created all things for His own good pleasure. He works all things after the counsel of His own will. For all those who care, there’s much that the righteous can do. 

  We can pray. Most of the time we tend to pray God will protect us. Though we may not say it like this, we hope that He’ll keep our own little worlds from being too rattled by change. Instead though, we need to pray for revival, even if it does turns our worlds upside down. we need to pray that God will pour out on us a fresh moving of His Spirit. Then, instead of watching change, we’d be part of the change…for good…for godliness.

  We can persevere in godliness. Many Christians believe America is in its last days. We don’t know that. Jesus said, “Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Just recently, I was reading about King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18-20). God was pouring out His cup of His judgment on Israel. It was all about to come raining down but then Hezekiah came on the scene. Hezekiah didn’t just know God’s Word, he took it seriously and applied it…and wonderfully, God held back His judgment for another generation.

  I wonder what God might do, if we, if the Church, got serious? If we prayed for revival and obeyed God’s Word? Instead of playing the “church game,” if we determined to surrender ourselves completely to Jesus Christ. I wonder what would happen if Grace Church truly lived out, “For to us to live is Christ…” (Philippians 1:21). That would be a huge change. I think it’d be a change that would so rock our world, we’d see revival.

  Change cuts both ways. By God’s grace, by our surrender and trust, let’s be part of the change that begins in our own hearts and brings another outpouring of God’s Spirit and power. Let’s be part of change that makes an eternal difference for God’s glory!

Hope...waitin' for the light to shine!

 

“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, I risk my whole eternity on the resurrection.”  Charles Spurgeon

  Our world is becoming more and more hopeless. Talk to someone about nearly any subject, whether the economy, education, world peace, crime, environment, public morality, work conditions, the Church, health, disease, government, marriage and divorce. Have a conversation about any of those subjects (and a host of others) and you’ll soon find that you’re drowning in a sea of negativity and pessimism.

  Life for too many has become dismal and dark. It reminds me of a scene from that classic Mark Twain novel, Huckleberry Finn. Huck wrestled with the darkness in his society and his own darkness as well. In his Southern culture, it was a major crime to help a runaway slave, as Huck had done for Jim. So Huck was torn between the attitudes of those who had raised him who were pro-slavery and looked on abolitionists as those “dirty abolitionists,” and his own friendship with Jim, the slave, who had sacrificed for him, taken risks for him, and had been through all kinds of adventures with him up and down the “Big River,” the mighty Mississippi. At this point in the book, Huck sings, “I am waitin' for the light to shine. I am waitin' for the light to shine. I have lived in the darkness for so long. I am waitin' for the light to shine.”

  Isn’t that most of the people you meet, maybe it’s even you…“waitin' for the light to shine.” This world is drowning in a sea of hopelessness. But, if you’re a Christian, this is not your world!

  Apart from the Christian faith, this world and everything we know is hopeless. Only Christianity has a guaranteed hope. Otherwise, despair hangs like a cloud over our culture. Christianity though offers hope, not just in this life, but also in the life to come.

  The power of Christian hope is accentuated by the difference in epitaphs marking the tombs of 1^st century Christians and unbelievers. Along the Appian Way, which runs south from Rome, stand the disintegrating tombs of aristocratic families that fed on the fat of Rome's power. The inscriptions on those tombs reflect the barrenness of hope. The crumbling Latin on one stone reads: “What I ate and drank I have with me; what I have left I have lost.”  Another says, "A cocktail, please, for you and me." Still another: "Wine and lust ruin the constitution, but they make life, farewell."

  Early Christians persecuted by Rome, often martyred in the Coliseum, were frequently forced to live and hide in the catacombs. Excavations in Rome have revealed some 60 catacombs, containing 600 miles of galleries, 8 feet high, and from 3 to 5 feet wide. On both sides are several rows of long, low, horizontal recesses, one above the other like berths on a boat, closed at the front either by a marble slab or by painted tile. Both pagans and Christians buried their dead in these catacombs. But there’s a stark difference in their epitaphs. Pagan inscriptions read: “Live for the present hour, since we are sure of nothing else.” Or, “I will lift up my hands against the gods who took me away at the age of 20, though I had done no harm.” Another says, “Once I was not. I know nothing about it, and it is no concern of mine.” Still another, “Traveler, curse me not as you pass, for I am in darkness and cannot answer.”   

  Yet, when the graves of Christians were opened, there were skeletons that revealed that their heads had been severed from the bodies, ribs broken, bones calcined from fire. What a contrast to heathen sentiments to read the epitaphs on the Christians' tombs: “Here lies Marcia, put to rest in a dream of peace.” Or, “Called away, he went in peace.” Still another, “Victorious in peace and in Christ.”

  What made the difference? Easter! Hope that comes with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. For the child of God, our ultimate hope centers in Jesus Christ, His Resurrection and the Life of the One Who has conquered death and promised us, as His followers, "Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). Hope for the Christian is different and must be distinguished from merely waiting with bated breath, fingers crossed. Christian Hope is always a confident, guaranteed expectation. Christian Hope never just says, "I hope so." Because of the Resurrection, our hope looks forward to an unconditionally guaranteed glory, where all evil, sorrow, and pain will be banished forever, and where an unimaginable Heaven and inheritance awaits us.

  Christian Hope then is much, much more than mere aspiration. It’s a settled conviction, joined to faith and based on God's Word. When Paul said that the heathen lived "without hope," he didn't mean that they had no desires. Rather, in the truest sense, they were without hope because they lived without the definite certitude that only comes from faith in Christ.

  Ancient culture at its very best, had no long range perspective, but saw man as a prisoner of this world and of life from which there was no escape. The Christian has a guaranteed hope that is interrelated with Easter, Christ’s resurrection and His second coming. Hope, then in the New Testament, is a joyous expectation of eternal salvation. It’s a confident anticipation unmarred by doubt.

  Man innately believes in a life that survives death. Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote, "Almost every person with who I have ever talked in my world travels has believed in life after death." Even Freud called the belief that death is the door to a better life as the "oldest, strongest, and most insistent wish of mankind." Yet, only the Christian who has committed his or her life to Christ, trusting in His sacrificial death on the Cross as the payment for their sins has true hope, not just a “I hope so.”

  Do you know Jesus? Do you have hope? There are many Christian hopes that pertain to this life: hope of answered prayer, the hope of another chance, the hope of God's providence bringing triumph out of tragedy. A  Christian has both hope today and hope for the world to come. It’s what Peter refers to as a “living hope” (1 Peter 1:3-5). Our living hope is founded completely on the resurrected Christ. Earthly hopes often prove vain. The resurrection of Jesus Christ on that first Easter morning launched true hope into its high and confident orbit. Do you have that hope today?