How To Face Change With Confident Anticipation

In preparing to end this past year and to start the new year, it seemed only appropriate to talk about the subject of change. 

Life seems to offer us one guarantee and that is that change will happen. Change is something we tend to fear and become anxious about because we do not feel we are in control of life when it happens! But is that really true?

I tend to look at the subject of “Change” as falling into 1 of 2 categories:

• Planned Change:  This is change that we have had a part in planning.  It can involve things like:

1.  A career change

2. A move to a new city

3. Retirement

• Unexpected Change:  This is the kind of change that seems to be thrusted upon us and were were clueless that it was going to take place. These can include:

1. The death of a loved one.

2. Unexpected illness

3. Being laid off from your job.

The problem with both of these ideas is that they focuses on the wrong thing!  The focus is all on us! It's all about what "I Want" or "That I need to be in control".  It's all "I", "I", "I"!  It's a pretty self-centered approach to looking at change!

But are we really to be the focus when facing change?  Is it really all about us?  I don't think so. 

The good news is that regardless of whether the change was PLANNED OR UNEXPECTED God was the one in control all along and He was not caught off guard by the change.  Instead, it was in His sovereign that caused the change to occurred. 

If we trust in God and allow the change He brought about to grow us to become more like Jesus in how we respond and act, then we are promised that it will always work out for good!

Now in light of what I just said let me encourage you not to be short sighted when you consider if some change worked out for your good or not.  Our perspective should go far beyond this temporal life that we live it and go on into eternity.  MUCH OF WHAT WE EXPERIENCE HERE IN THIS LIFE WILL NOT BE ACTUALIZED WITH GOOD UNTIL WE ENTER INTO THE NEXT LIFE!

Let's remember what 1 Cor 2:9 says!

“However, as it is written: "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived" -- the things God has prepared for those who love him—“

Let’s be honest, most of us have no idea all the great things that God has in store for us through the trials, tribulations and the changes he has us go through in this life.

So, how do we face change with confident anticipation?  Does God's word have anything to say that will help us?

Let's read Romans 8:28

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (NAS)

This verses gives us 3 clues that will help us when it comes to understanding change in our lives:

I.  God Is The One That Has Caused The Change To Take Place

Did you notice the verse in Romans starts off by saying, "... God causes all things ..."?  It is God who has brought about the circumstances that will create the needed change.  When things change it is because God is at work.  

It's not as if God was caught off guard by the change and then has to react to it.  No! God was the author of the change and the circumstances that were used to bring the change about.  

This one insight should bring you tremendous comfort when considering the changes that may or may not occur during this next year.  You can face the future and any new change with confidence because you know who was the author of the change.

II.  The Purpose Of The Change Is To Bring About Good!

Look again at what Romans says, "... God causes all things to work together for good."  That right for GOOD!  Even with the most dreadful of circumstance God has a purpose and plan at work to bring about good.

Take a look at Joseph the son of Jacob who was sold into slavery by his 10 older brothers and then afterwards thrown into jail because of being falsely accused of trying to rape his masters wife.  God used all those circumstances to get Joseph to be in the right place at the right time, so he could be used by God to save lots and lots of people from starvation.  Joseph himself even acknowledges this truth when he says to his brothers, much later, that even though what they did, they did with the intent to harm him, God intended it for good and to save many.   All the pain, all the heartache, all the betrayals and all the suffering Joseph had to endure was part of the plan God used to bring about good. 

Shouldn't it be comforting to know that God will never waste a hurt?  That will use all your pain and suffering to bring about good? Shouldn't we be able to face each new change that happens in our lives with confident anticipation knowing that some how God is going to use it for His glory and the good of others?

III.  This Promised Is Reserved Only Those Who Have Been Called By God!

" ... to those who are called according to His purposes."  

Not everyone who goes through painful changes are promised that good will come out of it!  No, only those who have been called by God and have a relationship with Him.  

In Noah's day when God brought about a huge change by flooding the world only Noah, his wife, his 3 sons and their wives benefited from the good that came about.  

Here's the wonderful thing about this great truth:  If you have a personal relationship with Christ because you have personally believed in His death, burial and resurrection and have surrendered control of your life over to the care and control of Christ, then this promise is for you.  

It's not just reserved for the superstar christians!  It is for all who have called upon the name of the Lord.  And that includes you. 

3 Important Facts About Knowing God's Will

As the Apostle Paul was writing his letter to the church at Colosse he tells the Christians there about a prayer that he offers up to God on their behalf.  This prayer contains some important information about knowing God's Will.  Read what it says,

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through spiritual wisdom and understanding ..."  Colossians 1:9 (NIV)

In this one verse we can learn 3 important facts about knowing God's will.  They are:

#1:  Knowing God's Will Is Of Utmost Importance.

Did you notice as you read the verse about that Paul said this this prayer is a prayer that he is praying for them daily?  For the Apostle Paul making sure that new believers in Christ were fully grounded in Christ was essential and if he was to accomplish that goal it was of the utmost importance that the new believers knew the will of God! 

Paul knew that being fully matured in Christ would require new believer to know what God's will is.  It would be impossible for them to be strong in their faith and not know God's will.  That's why he prayed daily for those coming to faith.  That's why his prayers contained petitions that those new believers would know and understand God's will. 

How Important And Essential Is Knowing God's Will To You?

How often do you pray for the new believers that you know about? That they would know God's will?

#2:  Knowing God's Will Is An Act Of God.

Did you notice in that verse that Paul was asking God to fill them with the knowledge of His will?  Who's doing the filling?  God is!  Who's the container being filled?  We are!  

Why is this important?  Simply because, you don't discover God's will - no instead it is God who reveals His will to us.  If we are going to understand what God's will is - it is because God has opened our eyes to see the truth of His will.  If God doesn't enlighten us we could never understand His will.  

#3:  Knowing God's Will Requires Spiritual Wisdom & Understanding.

Finally Paul states in his prayer that he is asking God to fill us with his will through spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Not human wisdom and understanding but spiritual wisdom and understanding.  The wisdom of this world does not and cannot comprehend the will of God.  To the world the will of God sounds like foolishness.  Understanding God's will requires us to have spiritual wisdom and understanding that come from God. 

The word for "wisdom" means the ability to understand what God is doing and the word for "understanding" means the ability to apply what they understand.  You see not only does God want us to understand His will is but He also wants us to know how to apply His will to our everyday life.  God doesn't just tell you what His will is to keep you informed - God shares his will with you because he wants you to join Him in what He is doing. 

Please leave a comment sharing what you think and share this post with your social media of Facebook and Twitter. 

3 Indispensable Biblical Parts To Answered Prayers

Confidence In Offering A Prayer Of Faith

When it comes to living a powerful missional life that brightly shines the Light of Christ in our part of this dark world prayer is essential.  But not just any kind of prayer but prayers where there is confidence that God will hear and answer it. 

So much of our prayers is what I like to call, "I hope God will answer my prayers!" but there's no confidence that God will actually do it.  We are praying with uncertainty that God will actually do what we are asking Him to do.  On top of this lack of confidence there is just a lot of "BAD" teaching going on in the name of "PRAYING IN FAITH".  To many people out there like to take just one passage of scripture and emphasis it to the exclusion of other essential and indispensable verses on topic.  This is a very bad practice to develop!  In learning to praying in faith we need to understand the full council of God.  Failure to do so can lead a person into a practice that's not only unbiblical but potentially destructive to their faith. 

There are 3 Indispensable Biblical parts for having confidence that God will answer your prayers the way you have asked him to.  

Let me emphasis that they are essential and indispensable!

Why?  Because they are like 3 legs on a stool!  If you remove any of legs from the stool, leaving only 2 legs, the stool will fall down!  ALL THREE LEGS ARE INDISPENSABLE!  The ability to pray and know that your  prayers will be answered requires us to have all three of these indispensable parts in place. Remove one of the parts and you no longer can have confidence and certainty that your prayers will be answered the way you are asking!   But if you have all three parts in place you can pray with confidence and know you have what you ask for.  So, what are they?

PART #1:  Hearts That Don't Condemn Us

"Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." 1 John 3:21,22

This is the part that makes sure that you the one praying is in a proper spiritual condition to come before God and ask Him to do something.   Knowing that we are in a spiritual condition that allows us to come into God's presence and be accepted is a vital part to knowing that your prayers will be answered.  

In order to know if we are in a proper spiritual condition to come before God with our petitions we need to do a spiritual inventory of our life. We need to see if there are any unconfessed sins that still need God's forgiveness.  If their is sin then the activity that is needed is a prayer of honest confession from true repentance.  In 1 John 1:9 God gives us assurance that our sins can be forgiven with this simple act.  Read what it says, 

"If we confess our sin that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Why should we think that we can receive anything from the Lord if our hearts are not right with the Lord.  To have confidence that our prayers will be heard by God depends first and foremost if we are prepared to even ask for it.

Question To Ask Yourself:  

Is There Any Unconfessed Sin In Your Life That Needs To Be Dealt With And Made Right With God?

PART #2:  Knowing & Praying According To God's Will

"This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him." 1 John 5:14,15

This part deals with the actual request being made.  Is what we are asking for according to God's will or not.  This passage of scripture makes it perfectly clear that when our requests are inline with God's will we know God hears us and we know He will give us what we ask for.  

If you are asking for something that is not according to God's will it doesn't matter how much, how often or even how passionately you ask God for it, it you will not receive it.  Why?  Because it wasn't part of God's will.  In order to pray in faith with confidence you must know what God's will is! If you are uncertain what God's will is on a particular matter then before you can pray in faith about it you must first pray for God to reveal His will to you about it. Listen to what James 1:5 says,

 "If anyone lacks wisdom you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him."

What a wonderful assurance this verse provides us. If we ask God to reveal His will to us by giving us wisdom He promises to do it.  NOW THAT'S POWERFUL!  Once God reveals to you His will concerning the matter then you can begin to pray in accordance to God's will with confidence that God will answer it.

Question To Ask Yourself:

Do You Know What God's Will Is Concerning The Matter You're Praying About?

PART #3:  Praying In Faith With No Doubt 

Once you know that you are able to go into God's presence to make your request and once you know what God's will is concerning the issue you are praying about, then you can make your request to God but you have to make it in faith and without any doubt that God will do exactly what you are asking Him to do.  NO DOUBT!

"Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 'Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:22-23

Praying in faith and without doubt is essential to answered prayers. However, this kind of faith that I am talking about is not a faith that controls God and makes Him do whatever we want.  That kind of faith reduces God to be like genie in a bottle. Our God is not a genie that has to give us our three wishes.  No! Our God is the Sovereign Lord of all creation.  God doesn't do our will - we are to do His will!  Biblical faith is not some kind of force that makes God do what we want.  

Biblical faith is surrender to God's will and joining God in accomplishing His will!  This prayer of faith is because you already know what God is going to accomplish, you have discovered His will on the matter, and through faith you are surrendering your will over to God's will and fully trusting that God will, not maybe, accomplish exactly what He said He would do.   In other words when you pray a prayer of faith you have no doubt that what you are asking is going to happen because you know that God already has willed it to happen!  

Question To Ask Yourself:

Once God Has Revealed To You What His Will Is Do You Have The Faith To Pray That It Will Happen Without Doubt?

When you are certain that all three of this parts are in place then you can have confidence that God not only hears your prayers but that you will also receive for what you have asked.  Remove one of these three part or legs and the stool will fall.  All three are essential and indispensable if you are to receive in prayer what you have asked God to do. 

Please share this important post on prayer to your friends and connections on Facebook & Twitter!  And then take a few moments and leave a comment sharing your thoughts about this topic!  Thanks! 

Could Your Good Intentions Become A Stumbling Block For Fulfilling Christ's Mission?

During one of my house church meeting we were reading the story of Jesus when he was telling his disciples plainly that he would be arrested, beaten, killed but on the third day would rise from the dead.  We had an interesting discussion about how Jesus' disciples responded to this very clear and frank revelation that Jesus was making about what was to happen to him.  Here's what the verse says,

"From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law,and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 'Never, Lord!' he said. 'This shall never happen to you!'  Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”  Matthew 16:16-23 (NIV)

It is quite obvious from the passage that Peter wasn't happy with what Jesus was saying.  I mean Jesus wasn't trying to be obscure about the meaning of what he was talking about.  He wasn't sharing this spiritual truth in some parable that required you to sit down and contemplate the deeper meaning behind it. No, Jesus was talking quite plainly and sharing with his disciple exactly what was going to happen him and Peter made it very clear he didn't like it at all.  

Picture the scene.  Jesus has just finished sharing about his death, burial and resurrection and Peter doesn't like what he heard, so he asks Jesus to speak with him off to the side and, according to the Bible, begins to REBUKE Jesus.  REALLY?  What audacity for Peter to think that he could pull aside and rebuke the Son of the Living God!  Is he for real?  Who does Peter think he is?  

Now I know some of you are wanting to come to Peter's defense by thinking that maybe he really didn't know exactly that Jesus was the Christ the Son of the Living God!  I mean if Peter didn't understand Jesus' true identity that would be a reasonable excuse for his disrespectful behavior, right?  But wait a moment!  Is that accurate?  Did Peter not know who Jesus was and that he was the Son of Living God ?  The truth is that Peter did know exactly who he was talking to and what Jesus' true identity was!  Let's take a look at the verse right before the ones we just read:

"When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say the Son of Man is?'  They replied, 'Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.'   'But what about you?' he asked. 'Who do you say I am?'   Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.'  Jesus replied, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.' Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah." Matthew 16:13-20 (NIV).

There it is right there in front of our faces!  After Jesus asked the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" It was Peter who said, "Your are the Messiah (Christ) the Son of the living God."  It hadn't been more than ten minutes between Peter great confession and Peter's great stupidity.  Peter knew exactly who Jesus was.  It was God the Father, himself, who had revealed that spiritual truth to him.  Now, we see Peter feeling as though has the right to pull Jesus, the Son of the living God, aside and REBUKE him and all because he didn't  like what he's hearing!

Now I don't think that Peter's intentions were bad!  I think that Peter loved Jesus with all his heart, mind, soul and strength.  I think Peter was only looking out for Jesus' best interests and actually thought he was doing the right thing!  But with all of Peter's  best intentions, Peter was still being a stumbling block to Jesus because what he wanted wasn't in line with God's will!

PETER'S BEST INTENTIONS BECAME A STUMBLING BLOCK TO JESUS!

"What?" You might be asking, "Peter became a stumbling block to Jesus?"  Please understand those aren't my words, that's what Jesus said.  Jesus said that Peter's best intentions was used to be a stumbling block to him.  Jesus actually called Peter Satan.  "Get behind me Satan."  Right there at that particular moment Peter, who loved Jesus, was being an instrument that Satan was using to try and tempt Jesus not to go to the cross. Even though Peter had the best intentions he was not only a stumbling block to Jesus he was also being the instrument of Satan!

NOT ONLY WAS PETER A STUMBLING BLOCK TO JESUS BUT HIS BEST INTENTIONS WERE USED AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SATAN!

Why?  

Why was Peter a stumbling block and why was he able to be used by Satan?  Because even though Peter's intentions were meant to be good they were based from man's concerns and not God's concerns.  

• Peter's concern were to protect and keep Jesus safe
  
• God's concern was the salvation of the world through Jesus' death, burial and resurrection.
  
• Jesus was not sent to be protected, he doesn't need human protection,
  
• He was sent to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world.  

In order for God to actualize his concern and save the world, Jesus had to die and Peter actions based from his concern became a stumbling block.  The lesson that Peter was learning was that it's not about his will being done but all about God's will being done!

IT'S NOT ABOUT OUR WILL BEING DONE BUT ALL ABOUT GOD'S WILL BEING DONE!

How many times have we been Peter?  

• How many times have we tried to rebuke God for what he was doing?  
• How many times have we had all the best intentions to do the right thing but lacked the spiritual understanding and faith to accept God's will?  
• How many times have our actions became a stumbling block to Christ's mission being accomplished?  

For me the number is to hight to count.  As I look back over my life and ministry I realized that so much of what I tried to do was based from my own concerns and interests and not God's at all.  It's strange to think about but how many times have I prayed for God to do something because that's what I really wanted to happen but never took into account what God was trying to do?  It has been a humbling lesson to learn that even my  prayers can become a stumbling block for Christ's mission to move forward!

So, what do we need to do? I believe it all starts with two things:  Faith and Revelation.  

First, we need to make sure we have the faith to surrender our will over to Gods will.  

We need to get to a place in our spiritual walk where we have no will of our own except to do the will of God.  Faith is the emptying of ourselves from our own personal desires so that we can wholeheartedly believe and accept God's desires.  

Second, we need God to reveal to us His will to us!  

God's will is never discovered as though it is some hidden treasure.  No, God's will is always revealed by God to us his people.  We need pray that God will give us eyes to see and ears to hear when God is telling us what he's about to do.  This is where Peter failed.  Peter was receiving a clear revelation of what was to happen to Jesus through his death on the cross and resurrection but Peter didn't have the faith to surrender his personal desires over to God and die to them so that He would be able to accept what God's will really was.  

Let us all begin to pray that we don't act upon our BEST INTENTIONS but that we always have the FAITH that we need to act upon GOD'S INTENTIONS as he reveals them to us.