Ephesians 6:16 (NIV) – In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Faith causes a supernatural reaction to occur when combined with the ordinary.  It takes more faith to live in the mundane than it does to live in the highs of life.  With the highs (or crisis) of life, we naturally step up to the moment and can adapt to the situation.  The adrenaline that is produced or defense mechanisms that we employ give us the ability to survive or thrive, depending on the situation.

It’s in the mundane that true faith is employed.  The enemy of our souls does not sleep nor does he give up trying to sabotage a person’s life.  Our enemy’s work can sometimes be compared to the slow, steady, annoying, dripping faucet that seems to have to shut-off valve.  How else do you think he slips so many things into our lives, us being unaware?  A direct confrontation with evil is much more noticeable than the sleight of hand trick.  Considering the work of the enemy, do you see how the verse in Ephesians needs to apply in the daily life of a believer?

While the “evil one” in the verse definitely signifies the enemy, some of the accompanying definitions can mean “pressing”, “perils”, “annoyances”, “a time full of peril”…in other words, constant.  Having faith then, is the solution to living fully in the mundane.  Every day is a new day to carry the shield of faith in your life.  Every day is yet another day to see God work in the seemingly insignificant parts of our lives.

If you find yourself waiting for your big break or for your ship to come in, begin acting in such a way that mixes faith with the ordinary parts of your life.  Believe that God cares about the small details, acknowledge Him in the little things, live thankfully for the basic essentials.  You’ll see that by applying faith to your mundane, your faith will grow into the supernatural.

Reflections

Context of scripture verse –  Ephesians 6:10-20

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

•  Are there areas in your life that bore you?  Do you take things for granted such as your provision, or your health?

Apply:

• Re-read the text in Ephesians 6.  Using the scripture, write down the things that can equip you to deal with the tactics and schemes of the enemy.  In facing the mundane areas of your life, ask God to show you His involvement in those areas.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

 Romans 5:5 (NIV) – And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Hello

Because of God’s overwhelming love for us, we have an incredible opportunity to experience the filling of His love into our hearts.  To think that we can possess the same love towards other people that God has towards us, is incredible indeed!

Romans chapter five gives us glimpse into the workings of the mind of God.  That is very important to note because the natural tendencies of our thinking is usually opposite of the mind of God.  Realizing that our sufferings actually are intended to give us hope and not leave us hopeless is amazing!  That hope will not leave us empty handed or let down because of the great love that God pours into our hearts.  The love that God pours into our hearts serves as a guarantee of His character and a testimony of His mercy towards us.

Possessing the love of God in our hearts will enable us to overcome the obstacles that may have been tripping us up for years.  These obstacles may have had their power over us because we never had the love of God in our hearts.  If we’ve had the love of ourselves in our hearts, we will naturally act in accordance to our desires and thoughts.  Having the love of God in us is not simply a warm, fuzzy feeling that causes goose-bumps.  It is a power that causes even the weakest person to become strong.

If you’ve had trouble forgiving someone lately, ask God to put His love in your heart towards that person.  You won’t have to continue to feed the monster of bitterness once the love of God kicks it out.  If you’ve been living selfishly, ask for the love of God to flood your heart and watch your thoughts, speech and actions change for the glory of God.  The love of God can change everything!

Reflections

Context of scripture verse – Romans 5:1-21

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

• Do you think of the love of God more as a feeling or as a power?  Write down your definitions of the love of God.

Apply:

•  Read 1 Corinthians chapter 13 for a Biblical definition of love.  Ask God to place that love inside of you and to overflow your heart with His love. Write down the difference in your thinking and in your actions.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

Luke 6:12 (NIV) – One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

Prayer was like oxygen to the ministry of Jesus.  The element a believer needs most if their lives are to climb to spiritual significance is that of prayer.  A life without prayer almost certainly guarantees a life without miracles, divine direction and peace of mind.  A life full of prayer opens up all of the possibilities and attributes of God that is available to those that believe in His Son Jesus.

Consider the fact that because of prayer, Jesus was able to defend Himself against religious Pharisees, perform miracles in front of a hostile crowd, make right choices in choosing the people around Him and possess power and authority through the spoken word to change the hearts of people.  Even though He was God in flesh, He modeled what a true prayer life can be like for us.  Constant communication with God opened up a continuous grace and flow of the Spirit in His life.

There are two main themes by which we pray.  Petition and Praise.  Petition means that we bring to God our requests for ourselves and especially for others with the belief that He hears us and is willing to answer.  Praise means that we bring honor to God because He deserves our praise.  Praise means even more to Him when we haven’t seen the answers that we’ve been praying for yet.  By praising Him, we say to God that we value His presence even more than His presents.

God desires a people that will pray to Him and operate in the flow of His Spirit.  Perhaps if we would take more time to pray about something instead of only working on it, we would have the opportunity to see God do His work in that situation.  Truly, when God does His work, that work makes all the difference.

Reflections

Context of scripture verse – Luke 6:1-49

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

• Are there areas in your life that seem “stuck”?  Have you been working very hard on some things that haven’t seemed to change?  Write those areas down on a piece of paper.

Apply:

•  For one week, commit to bringing these difficult areas to God and commit the outcome to His work and not your own work.  Focus on the needs of someone else this week as well.  Bring their needs to God like you bring your needs to Him and watch the difference that is made.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

Colossians 4:7 (NIV) – Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord.  

Tychicus was entrusted by Paul to carry the letter he wrote in prison to the church in Colossae.  The Bible tells us that Tychicus was also entrusted to carry another letter to the church in Ephesus as well.  Being entrusted to carry a message is a pretty big deal and certainly requires a lot of faithfulness.  Defined, faithfulness means “trusty, faithful, and easily persuaded”.

Faithfulness is a wonderful character trait that God works through and it is something that cannot be faked.  I like the definitions given for the word faithful.  It looks to me that before someone can be trusty or faithful, they must be easily persuaded by God.  In other words, they must have a strong, solid trust in God before being able to exhibit qualities like God.

The Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that God is faithful.  Stories prove His faithfulness, testimonies back it as well.  He is faithful.  If we are persuaded that He is faithful with us, we can certainly persuade ourselves to be faithful to Him.  The more we trust Him, the more apt we are to be faithful in the things that He asks for us to do.  What He asks is not wearisome or overwhelming if we respond in trust to His ways.  If we don’t trust Him we will prove to be faithless in our dealings with Him.  Being confident in the integrity of God will help us greatly as we grow to be more like Him.

Tychicus is a great example of a faithful messenger.  Through our faithfulness to God, we can be certain that He too will work through our lives and convey a message of hope to others.

 Reflections

Context of scripture verse – Colossians 4:7-18

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

• Note how many people Paul mentions in the closing of his letter to the Colossians.  In what areas were they faithful in?

Apply:

• Are there areas in your life that need to be addressed in the area of your faithfulness?  To your word?  To your commitments?   To your calling?  In prayer, ask God to help you with your level of faithfulness.  Consider giving Him some areas in your life that you’ve been unwilling to do so up till now.  Increased trust = Increased faithfulness

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders

Zechariah 7:9 (NIV) – “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.

Zechariah was part of the reconstruction committee commissioned by God to help rebuild the city and society of Jerusalem.  God used Zechariah as a messenger of sorts (a prophet) to speak certain things to the people who had returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon.  Like Nehemiah, Zechariah also had a task to do in helping the mentality of the people shift towards the thoughts of God rather than being consumed with their own erroneous thinking.

In the verse above, what God meant then nearly 2500 years ago means the same thing now in our present age.  Showing compassion to someone else and operating in mercy is one of the best ways to overcome a personal pity party.  Let’s face it; a sign of mental stability is the acceptance that life will never be fair.  A sign of a person who overcomes life is how they treat those who are less fortunate then themselves.

The audience in this book certainly had enough to worry about in rebuilding their city, their culture and their lives.  Those three things in and of themselves are enough to consume any person’s thinking for a long time.  God didn’t want them focusing only on their problems though; He wanted them to focus on the problems of others.  In doing so, while they showed compassion and mercy towards other people, their city would be rebuilt, their culture would be restored and their lives would be changed.

If you feel like you have too much to worry about in your life, try helping someone and showing compassion to them.  You may just find that God will step into your life and fix things that you couldn’t find a solution to.

Reflections

Context of scripture verse –  Zechariah 7:8-14

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

•  Where are the majority of your thoughts focused on lately? Are they focused on your problems that you can’t seem to fix?  Try thinking about a problem (or two) of someone else’s and ask God to help you with a solution for them.

Apply:

• Find three people this week to show an act of love or compassion towards.  They don’t have to be people you know.  Think about paying for someone’s meal, groceries or coffee…without them knowing.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

 Nehemiah 13:31 (NIV) – I also made provision for contributions of wood at designated times, and for the first-fruits. Remember me with favor, O my God.

Hello

Nehemiah’s reform really began after the wall of Jerusalem was completed.  The most difficult part of the rebuilding process wasn’t merely the physical wall, but the mindset change and habits needing to be learned by the residents living in the city.  It takes courage to face a life-controlling habit or sabotaging thought processes.  Nehemiah quickly realized that just because a great accomplishment had happened for and through the people of Jerusalem, it didn’t mean that they were now living in freedom.

Like many things in our lives, whenever there is a break-through or a great accomplishment, our human nature can revert back to old, learned behavior that transported us into our original problems.  Nehemiah’s outrage against the people of Jerusalem in this chapter was because they were reverting back to what got them into their predicament in the first place.

The great thing about the work of God is that He is able to deliver us from anything and everything that cripples and binds us.  Because of His mercy and the finished work of the Cross, we have the opportunity to walk in complete and total freedom through Jesus Christ.  Coupled with that new freedom, however, we must learn to walk in courage, facing our ugly human nature that always tries to dominate our thinking and control our actions.

Having a personal reformation is going to demand that courage be present to implement strong discipline and to pursue thinking with a renewed mind.  As Jesus has begun a great work, you can be certain that He will complete that work. Only be strong and courageous, let God rebuild and reconstruct your inner being.  The end result is well worth it.

Reflections

Context of scripture verse – Nehemiah 13:1-31

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses (for further reading, read the entire book of Nehemiah)

Challenge:

•  Take notice of the times in your life where you decided to make a change but were unable to complete it.  Why were you unable to accomplish your intention?

Apply:

• Whenever God breaks through in your life, begin to think about the process that is needed for you to live in the break through.  Pray that God will give you the courage to face the things that drag you down.  Ask Him to give you strength to overcome them.  Begin absorbing His Word in order to renew your mind.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

 John 17:20 (NIV) – My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.

Faith can be strengthened and built through word of mouth.  In Jesus’ prayer, He was praying for everyone who would ever believe in Him through the message spoken by another person sharing the good news.  Think about the times when something someone said moved you to act or make a decision.  Words spoken from a testimony certainly have that effect.  That is why it is so important to be around people with a positive testimony of life rather than around those with a negative one.

Your faith can be strengthened through the hearing of the Word of God.  When someone takes the Bible, and speaks about what God has spoken through the sacred writings and if you listen to it, your faith can be made more solid than it was before.  Another component of growing faith is the ability to speak out a positive testimony of what God is doing or has done in your life.  The two are closely related and really cannot exist fully without the other.  If you only listen and fail to internalize the Word of God into your belief system, it would be similar to pouring water into a leaky pail.  At some point, the water is simply going to run out.

However, if you begin to speak the things that God is doing in your life and believe the things that God is speaking into your life, you will begin to see a marked improvement in your faith capacity.  It is then that you can build upon the solid foundation of your faith into other character benefits of living a Spirit-led life.  The problems that once seemed insurmountable will now seem rather small in the light of what God says about them.  If it helps you, just remember that Jesus already prayed for your faith in this prayer, if He is for you, who can be against you?

Reflections

Context of scripture verse – John 17:1-26

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

• Have you ever had trouble listening to what God says to you?  Do you have trouble listening to others?

Apply:

• In your prayer time today, take some time to be still before God and see what He says to you.  When you come to church, listen to the words of the pastor as he/she speaks the Word of God.  Listen for what God is saying to you through their testimony.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

Romans 8:35 (NLT) – Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?

Some people get confused when bad things happen to them in life.  They begin believing that God doesn’t love them anymore, or that God’s love for them was greater when good things were happening to them.  After reading this entire passage and seeing what God has done for us, how can we reasonably say that God’s love is based upon what happens to us?  Even though we live in a world laced with sin, even that cannot separate us from the love of Christ.

Instead of being confused about God’s love, let’s choose to be certain that God loves us no matter what faces us.  We can be certain that no amount of good works will cause Him to love us more and be certain that no calamity that befalls us indicates that He now loves us less.  Because of the confident assurance of His Father’s love towards him, Jesus was able to rest assuredly in the love of God while becoming the sacrifice that would enable ALL people to experience the overwhelming love of God. 

So, the next time you think that God’s love has run dry towards your life, be confident in the statements made by His Word that nothing can separate us from His love, be confident that because of His glory, all trials will soon pale in comparison.

 Reflections

Context of scripture verse – Romans 8:1-39

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

• Have you ever strived to be loved by God?  Have you ever given up on being loved by God? 

Apply:

• Consider the unconditional love of God in the last part of chapter 8.  Write down the specific things that verse 38 says cannot separate us from the love of God.  Place that somewhere that you will be able to see every day.  Begin meditating (thinking continually) about how unconditional the love of God is towards you.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

Luke 18:7 (NLT) – … so don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who plead with him day and night?

Anytime we do not receive an answer to the prayers we pray, we must be diligent to examine the inner workings of our motives in prayer.  First of all, are we asking in belief?  Do we really believe that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do?  If that question is answered with doubt or hesitation, we can be certain that our unbelief will get us nowhere.  Second, are we operating in humility towards God in our prayers?  Without realizing it, sometimes our humanity begins to manifest an undercurrent of pride that swells with every “unanswered” prayer.  “But God, you said that you would answer our prayers!  Why aren’t you answering mine?” or, “God, I’ve claimed every promise that you said you would answer, why aren’t you coming through for me?”  While these reactions and thoughts are very natural to our thinking, they can also be very dangerous to our well-being.  Bitterness can set in and begin choking out belief, replacing it with the decay of doubt.

The best solution to our unanswered prayers is to believe that God can and desires to answer them.  The next thing is to operate in humility when we pray so that we can give God room to answer when He sees fit and how He sees fit.  His ways are better than ours; it’s only to our advantage to learn them.

Reflections

 Context of scripture verse – Luke 18:1-14

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

•  Is there a sensitive spot in your life that hurts when you pray about it?  Has there been an area of unanswered prayer in your life?

Apply:

• Take a closer look at your prayers and honestly ask yourself if God is trying to help you learn something through the painful experience.  Keep in mind that the love of God may be trying to accomplish something inside of you through this tough season.

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)

Hey

 Titus 2:14 (NLT) – He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing what is right.

The character of a person absolutely redeemed by God mirrors the character of God Himself.  In Day 1, we talked about the love of God and how He made the way for us to become the children of God.  Jesus didn’t just commit Himself to the shame of the cross for us to inherit titles only; He did it so that we might be inwardly transformed to become totally committed to doing what is right.

Zeal is a characteristic of someone who has been redeemed by the work of the Cross.  For as much zeal that God placed in redeeming humanity, that same zeal can reside in each person that has been saved and forgiven of sin.  The work of the Cross is so much deeper than simply a monument of forgiven sin.  No sir, the work of the Cross goes deeper into my very being to conduct a symphony of transformation so that I become unrecognizable from the inside-out.

Apathy has no place to live in the heart of someone that has been gripped by the grace of God.  There is no other alternative but to be consumed with doing what is right, for the glory of God.  As we continue to reflect the likeness of Christ, we will be devoted to mirroring Christ’s compassion, His character and ultimately, His actions.  None of this will be done through obligation or religious duty as some would force upon others.  All of our actions spring from the character residing inside of us.  If we have shaky character, shaky actions will follow, if our character is like Christ’s, we can be sure that we will look more and more like Him every single day.

Reflections

 Context of scripture verse – Titus 2:11-15

­­Consider:

• Read the context of the verses

Challenge:

• Are there some areas in your life that could use zeal?

Apply:

• Take note of your behavior or attitude towards Christ’s work in you.  If your feelings towards doing good for others is cold or lacking, ask God to help make His redeeming work alive and meaningful to you. (Don’t rule out the possibility of needed to confess sin that could be separating you from Him).

Note to Self: (reflections, challenges, reminders)