God Writes The Best Stories (Left It In The River)

The Secret Trap (Am I Offended?) Day 1 of 5

The possibilities for offense are as endless as the list of relationships, no matter how complex or simple. From Am I Offended? by John Bevere on YouVersion As I travel across the United States ministering, I have observed one of the enemy’s most deadly and deceptive traps. It imprisons countless Christians, severs relationships, and widens our existing breaches. It is the trap of offense. Many are unable to function properly in their calling because of the wounds and hurts that offenses have caused in their lives. They are handicapped and hindered from fulfilling their full potential. Most often, it is a fellow believer who has hurt them. This causes the offense to feel like a betrayal. In Psalm 55:12–14, David laments, “For it is not an enemy who taunts me— then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me— then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng.” The home, meant to be a shelter of protection, provision, and growth where we learn to give and receive love, is often the very root of our pain. History shows that the bloodiest wars are civil—brother against brother, son against father, or father against son. The possibilities for offense are as endless as the list of relationships, no matter how complex or simple. This truth remains: Only those you care about can hurt you. You expect more from them—after all, you’ve given more of yourself to them. The higher the expectations, the greater the fall. Selfishness reigns in our society. Men and women today look out for themselves to the neglect and hurt of those around them. This should not surprise us. The Bible is very clear that in the last days, men will be “lovers of themselves”. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, – 2 Timothy 3:2 We expect this in unbelievers, but Paul was not referring to those outside the church. He was talking about those within it. Many are wounded, hurt, and bitter. They are offended! But they do not realize that they have fallen into Satan’s trap. Is it our fault? Jesus made it very clear that it is impossible to live in this world and not have the opportunity to become offended. Yet most believers are shocked, bewildered, and amazed when it happens. We believe we are the only ones who have been wronged. This response leaves us vulnerable to a root of bitterness. Therefore we must be prepared and armed for offenses because our response determines our future. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. – 2 Timothy 2:24-26 ESV

The Faith Of Moses (Kingdom Heroes) Day 5 of 5

From Kingdom Heroes by Tony Evans on YouVersion “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” (Hebrews 11:23) Not afraid. Those two words sum up how Moses grew to express such greatness. The parents who gave him life were “not afraid.” They lived with faith over fear. The DNA passed down to their son through this genetic transfer was that of belief. But even more than that, Moses’ parents’ lack of fear in the face of an evil culture and evil king spared his life. They chose to hide him so he would not be killed, as the king of Egypt had mandated for all male Hebrew newborns. Then, when Moses had grown too old to hide, they came up with an elaborate scheme to position him in a safe and secure place. The strategy involved placing Moses in a basket in the Nile River near the place where Pharaoh’s daughter bathed, accompanied by her maids. Knowing he was a beautiful baby, they assumed the best of her feminine instincts. And they were right. With one look at this crying infant, she “had pity on him and said, ‘This is one of the Hebrews’ children’ ” (Exodus 2:6). Moses’ parents knew Pharaoh’s daughter would not be in a position to raise a child on her own. Those types of roles were for servants in that cultural time period. So they’d also placed Moses’ sister, Miriam, where she could keep an eye on the basket and present herself when it was retrieved. The plan went according to their hopes, and when Miriam offered to find someone to help nurse the boy and care for him in the palace, Pharaoh’s daughter agreed. Miriam was more than willing to offer her mother to do just that. As we near the end of the murals on the hallway walls, we see the baby being drawn from the basket, we hear the water dropping off the basket as it’s lifted from the river, and from a loudspeaker, we hear the Bible passage that describes the rest of the scene: Pharaoh’s daughter said to [Moses’ mother], “Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:5-10). Not only was Moses’ life spared from certain death in the violent culture he’d been born into, but his mother was paid to nurse him and raise him in the palace. This truth reminds us that we will never discover what God can do until we trust Him to do it. He can do things that blow our minds. Moses’ parents had decided they would not be controlled by the culture, so their decisions reflected alignment under the one, true God. Living by faith means choosing God’s plan over the culture’s plan, then watching Him work it out for your good and others’ benefit.

The Faith Of Sarah (Kingdom Heroes) Day 4 of 5

“And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.” (Hebrews 11:11) Our next exhibit in the Hall of Heroes illustrates this truth in a dramatic fashion. This hero’s name is Sarah. She started life as Sarai, and she married Abraham, who, again, began life as Abram. God promised both Sarah and Abraham a son. God did this the same time he changed Sarah’s name: As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her (Genesis 17:15-16). Not only was Sarah 90, but she’d been barren her entire life. She’d never conceived or given birth to a child. Her physical capacity to do so was absent, and time was no longer on her side. So this promise from God simply didn’t fit the facts of her life. It wasn’t practical. It’s possible that Sarah’s story resembles your own but in a different way. You could be barren in other forms. Your capacity to experience what God has for you just doesn’t seem to be there. You’re not producing what you thought you would be at this stage in your life. You’re not delivering on the destiny you believed to be yours. You’ve heard Jesus’ promise in John 10:10, when He declared, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” But you don’t see the results of that promise in your everyday life. If that describes your current state of mind, know that Sarah was right where you are. Five times God had told her she was going to have a son. Not only that, but He’d gone on to tell Abraham and her that, through this son, a whole nation would be birthed. Sarah had a vision for a great future. Yet the clock kept taunting her, tempting her to give up and doubt God. If we were to look closely, we’d see that many of our lives look like this—like our ability to be what God wants us to be, to do what God wants us to do, and to achieve what God wants us to achieve no longer exists. Whatever the case, if you feel like too much time has passed to get to experience the fulfillment of Christ’s promise of an abundant and fulfilling life, I encourage you to never let the facts get in the way of your faith. Don’t deny the facts—facts are facts—but just know that faith is never limited to facts alone. Facts always involve what you see. Faith involves what you don’t see.

The Faith Of Abraham (Kingdom Heroes) Day 3 of 5

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (Hebrews 11:8) Your life of faith as a kingdom hero will also involve how you choose to live. We read in Hebrews 11:9 that “by faith [Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.” Abraham made it to the area promised to him, but it was not yet his. Perhaps no discipline in the kingdom hero’s toolbox of faith is greater than the discipline of waiting well. While you’re waiting, God is doing two things related to your life at once. First, He’s preparing the promise for you, and second, He’s preparing you for the promise. Most people delay the promise they’re waiting for because they choose not to cooperate with the learning of the lessons and the spiritual growth God has for them in the interim. That’s what happened to Abraham. He ended up in the Hall of Heroes, but not every decision he made was heroic. He delayed his breakthrough to his first promise by some 25 years. Abraham wasn’t ready. He was still lying, cheating, and even sleeping with his wife’s handmaiden, resulting in a baby born outside God’s will. Before he got his inheritance, Abraham first needed to come to his senses, grow in his faith, and trust God fully—even when it didn’t look like anything was happening. God never wants to give someone a destiny that will cause them to forget Him when they get it. When God delivers on those promises, we often praise Him and then just as quickly forget He did. We forget because we lack the kind of commitment that’s tied to more than what we see and what we get. Like Abraham, we are also to live as foreigners in a strange land. 1 Peter 2:11-12 puts it like this: Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. God doesn’t want any of us to get too attached to the world we live in now. We aren’t to adopt the culture so much that our behavior begins to reflect the common behaviors of the culture. Not only that, but remaining mobile frees us to pursue His plan more fully. If you’re going to walk by faith, you better have on loafers or comfortable shoes, because God can take you on some long and winding paths. Staying tied too closely to your comfort zone will limit what God is able to do both in and through you.

The Faith Of Noah (Kingdom Heroes) Day 2 of 5

“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.” (Hebrews 11:7) Many of us fail to live our lives as kingdom heroes simply because our faith has dried up. We go through the motions only to discover that our Christian walk has gone flat. We lack that which transforms the heart of faith to the next level of heroic fruition. James explains this: “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself” (James 2:14-17). James lets us know how to reactivate faith—by combining what we do with what we believe. The work of obedience ignites the reality of faith so we see the invisible spiritual power enter into the visible reality around us. Noah arguably gives us the greatest illustration of faith at work in humanity. His story highlights a man of incredible conviction. He didn’t strive for popular acceptance. He knew God and chose to follow Him closely: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.” Genesis 6:9b Noah lived to please God. He walked with God, similar to the many others who also wound up in the Hall of Heroes. On top of that, Noah was a blameless man. He had integrity with both people and God. As a result, he found favor with God. And God’s favor can do more than bring blessing; it can bring peace. Today, we’re facing an epidemic of indecisiveness in our culture. So many people are simply afraid to make a decision. And the concept of groupthink has become a chokehold. As a result, more often than ever, we as believers fail to move forward based on what God has directed us to do. Just think about what would have happened if Noah had waited for consensus on building the ark. But thankfully, Noah’s faith had been activated. He had a living faith that showed up in what he did, not just in what he said. As a result, his legacy is on display in the Hall of Heroes. His impact has gone down in history as one of the bravest, most courageous to have ever been lived out.