Basic Truths | Finding God in Everyday Life

  Continuing the discussion of God’s promises from last week…..   We all know people that we trust absolutely. We can be sure they will do whatever they promise. How do we know? They have shown us by their past actions that they are as good as their word.   Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 1:20).   God showed His faithfulness by fulfilling the promises of the Old Testament through Jesus.   We are witnesses to His faithfulness to us every day. When we know beyond a doubt that God has fulfilled so many of His promises, it gives us confidence that He will be faithful in those promises which have yet to be fulfilled.   Last week we touched on some of God’s promises in the Old Testament. There are many promises in the New Testament, some of which we have already experienced in our lives and some whic...

  I’m not sure what brought this to mind the other day, but I’m not a person who makes promises. If I tell you that I’ll do something, I’ll do it but I won’t promise to do it. I reserve promises for those things that are very important to me. When my wife and I were married, as part of our vows I promised “…..to honor and cherish you and to love you the way Christ loves the Church”. We renewed our vows in the same church at our 25 th anniversary and it was a blessing to us and to those around us to be reminded of our promises to each other.   I’ve seen a claim that God made several thousand promises in the Bible. The exact number is subject to some interpretation, but certainly God has made many very important promises to us. We know that He will keep all the promises that He makes. It’s good for us to be reminded of His promises from time to time, to keep them fresh in our hearts and minds as we go about our daily lives. Here are just a few from the Old Testament. ...

 I’m old-fashioned. I have a smartphone that I can take pictures with and I use it once in awhile. When I’m trying to take a nice picture, I prefer to use my old camera. I like being able to manually adjust the focus so that I can bring my subject  into just the right view, although everything else in the background may be a little out of focus.   In life, just as with my old camera, if we really focus on one thing, everything that is not at the center of our focus is going to be a little blurry in our mind. If we focus solely on our job, our family life may suffer.  If we focus only on our worldly ambitions, our spiritual life will suffer.   We are called as Christians to focus on Jesus. When we make it our goal to serve Him and to draw as close as possible to Him, we begin to see more clearly His ways and His call to us. When we focus on Jesus, not only do we see Him more clearly but He brings the rest of...

   I’ve gotten lost a few times while hiking in the woods. Not the” scary, they’re going to find my body” lost, more like the “irritated that I lost my way and concerned about how long it’s going to take to get back” lost. When I’m lost, the surroundings don’t seem as pleasant as they were just a little earlier. When I finally get back to a familiar place and can see my way to the end, I’m able to enjoy the experience again.   There are times when the direction of our lives veers off the path we were following and leads us into uncharted territory. We can feel lost trying to cope and deal with whatever trial has knocked us off of the path of happiness and contentment. We may question why we are going through it.   We may become so dejected that we begin to feel that God has abandoned us, even though there is something at the center of our being that tells us th...