Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (20 page)

God holds nothing against you if you are sincerely sorry for what you have done and are trusting in the blood of Jesus to cleanse you from your former wickedness. The minute you repent, God forgives and forgets it, so why not follow His example and receive His forgiveness and forget it yourself?

O
ne of the problems in the world today is that people want to “do their own thing” even if it makes them miserable. They don’t want to take direction from anyone or be told what to do, and they certainly don’t want to be accountable to God’s Word.

This kind of arrogant independence and rebellion is responsible for many unpleasant results and even tragedies. I am sure, if you stop and consider it, you know of situations in which people (maybe you) have
been determined to go their own way and ended up with terrible problems. This does not have to happen!

To be able to enjoy life and avoid unnecessary problems, you and I must live according to the truth in God’s Word and not according to the lies we hear from other people, the world, or the enemy. We must know how to separate what is true from what is not. You can do this, but the battle for truth takes place in your mind, and you won’t win it without a fight. You must examine
what
you believe and
why
you believe it. It is wise to be firmly convinced so when the devil challenges you concerning God’s Word, you are prepared to stand firm.

We often find the children of Christian parents reaching an age where they begin to wonder if they really believe what their parents have taught them or not. Sometimes they go through a “crisis” period concerning their faith in God. They need to find their own faith because they can no longer live on the faith of their parents as they have done in the past. This can be a very healthy process. Most of them usually realize they do believe Jesus is their Savior, but it is a decision they need to make for themselves. You cannot stand through the storms of life based on someone else’s faith. You must be fully assured in your own heart and mind.

D
read is a powerful, gripping fear. People dread many things, and most of them don’t even realize what dread does to them. It sucks the joy right out of the present moment. But Jesus set you free from the power of dread. The life God has provided for us through Jesus Christ is a precious gift, and we should enjoy every moment of it.

Pray and ask God to show you every time you begin to dread any task or something lurking in your future that you’re not quite sure of. Merely eliminating dread from your life will release more of your God-given confidence and help you experience more joy.

How often do you find yourself putting things off that you dread doing? Maybe it’s that uncomfortable conversation you know you need to have, or those bills that need to be paid, or worse, maybe it’s your annual taxes! Train yourself not to dread anything but to actually tackle it first. The sooner in the day you do the things you don’t prefer doing, the more energy you have to do them. If you wait until the end of the day when most of your energy is gone and then try to do something you really don’t like doing, it will be worse than doing it earlier. Dread causes us to procrastinate, but if you’re ever going to do something, now is the best time!

Putting something off does not make it go away; it only allows more time to torment you. You can dread or you can confidently take action. As Christians with the power of the Holy Spirit inside us, surely we can manage to do an unpleasant task without dreading it and with a good attitude. God’s power is not available just to make unpleasant things in our lives go away; it is frequently available to walk us through them courageously.

W
hen God created Adam and Eve, He blessed them, then told them to be fruitful and multiply and use all the vast resources of the earth that He gave them in the service of God and man.

Are you being fruitful? Is your life causing increase? When you get involved with people and things, do they increase and multiply? Some people only take in life, and they never add anything. I refuse to be that kind of person. I want to make people’s lives better. I want to put smiles on faces.

We must all make sure that we are not like the rich man in the Bible who had so much that all of his barns were full with no room for more. Instead of giving any of it away, he decided that he would tear down the barns he had and just build bigger ones and collect more stuff for himself. He was a foolish man. He could have decided that he would use what he had to bless others, but he must have been a fearful, selfish man, who only had room in his life for himself (see Luke 12:16–20).

God called the man a fool, and said, “This very night they [the messengers of God] will demand your soul of you; and all the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?” The man was going to die that night, and all he would leave behind was “stuff.” He had an opportunity to make the world a better place. He could have added to many lives and put smiles on thousands of faces. Instead, he fearfully and selfishly only cared about himself.

Forget about yourself and start doing all you can to help others.
Encourage, edify, lift up, comfort, help, give hope, relieve pain, and lift burdens. If that is your goal, you will be one of those rare individuals who actually make the world a better place and put a smile on every face.

I
t is highly probable that you dread more little things than you do major things. First of all, we have a lot of little things we deal with all the time, but the major things come fewer and farther in between. As I began to examine this area of dread in my own life, I realized it operated in little daily areas like going to the grocery store, doing laundry, running an errand, or looking for a parking place in a crowded shopping mall. I dreaded waiting because, historically, I have not been an extremely patient person. Waiting in lines or traffic, or for slow people to get a job done, were things I dreaded and allowed to frustrate me.

Like many of you, I have a lot to do, and I don’t like wasting my time waiting. But, thank God, I have learned it does no good at all to dread something I have to do anyway. It steals my current joy, and I have
lost enough of that in my life, so I am not willing to give up any more of it. I believe it glorifies God when we refuse to live in fear, worry, or dread.

When I find myself in a situation I would rather not be in, whether it is waiting or doing an unpleasant task, I make a decision that I will do it joyfully and not dread it, and then I exercise self-control. I use those faith muscles that God has given to me. You have them, too! If we allow fear and dread in our lives, they breed more fear, but if we practice walking in faith, it becomes easier to do it again and again.

Y
ears ago, a man named Captain Edward A. Murphy was working on a project for the United States Air Force. He became angry and cursed a technician who made a mistake, noting that, “If anything can be done wrong, this man will do it.” Over time, such thinking became known as “Murphy’s Law,” which basically states, “Nothing is as easy as it looks; everything takes longer than you expect; and if anything can go wrong, it will—at the worst possible moment.”

Many people have never heard of Edward Murphy, but most of us know Murphy’s Law. His negativity caught on and continues to impact the world. I believe God has laws that completely disagree with
Murphy’s Law. The world may expect Murphy’s Law to operate in their lives, but we need to resist that kind of negative thinking and embrace God’s Law instead.

God’s Law says that things may be difficult, there will be challenges, but we always have a reason to hope, we can always express ourselves through faith and love, and we can always trust that God is working on our behalf!

Negative thinking always produces a negative life. How much more could you enjoy your life if your thoughts agreed with God’s Law, not Murphy’s? God has a great life for you, one He wants you to enjoy thoroughly and live to the fullest. I challenge you to live by God’s Law and consistently fill your mind with positive thoughts.

A
teacher has a powerful responsibility. Parents, coaches, teachers, and other role models have tremendous influence—for example, they can train children to fear failure or they can teach them to be hopeful as they overcome adversity.

A mother who struggles with fear will pass that along to her children. Even when she doesn’t realize it, a phrase, an overly cautious attitude, or a reluctance to step out and try new things will be imparted to her little ones. But a mother with bold, courageous faith will inspire her children to chase the dreams God’s placed in their hearts.

We should not teach our children to live recklessly, but we should teach them to be bold, to take action, and to never be so afraid of making mistakes that they won’t try things. I believe we should teach our children and those under our authority to take chances in life. If we never take a chance, we will never make progress, and progress always requires stepping into the unknown. Experience gives us confidence, but we never get experience unless we step out and try things we have not tried before.

A child who is told over and over, “You better not try that, you might get hurt,” will more than likely become reluctant to try new things. If children hear “Be careful” too frequently, they may learn to be so careful that they end up living a narrow life that has no room for adventure.

I want to encourage you to teach others by word and example how to be bold and courageous. Tell people to try things, reminding them that making a mistake is not the worst thing that can happen. And if someone, somewhere in your past trained you to fear failure or to focus on the worst thing that could happen, it’s never too late to live by faith.

N
one of us knows for sure what the future holds. This lack of knowledge often opens the door for fear. What if I become disabled? What if my spouse dies? What if my child dies? What if we have another world war? What about terrorism? What kind of world will I be living in twenty-five years from now?

Wondering about things we don’t have answers to opens the door to fear. Instead of wondering, trust God that whatever your future holds, He will enable you to handle it when the time comes. Wherever you are going, God has already been there and paved the way for you. This isn’t a one-time decision—it’s a choice you make every day to trust Him.

I look at some of the things people go through, and I say to myself,
“I am afraid I could never go through that with the graciousness and courage I have seen them display.”
Then I remind myself that when we must go through something negative, God gives us the strength to do so. When we merely fear going through something, we do it without any help from God at all. When I look back over my life and remember some of the things God has brought me through, I think,
How did I do that?
It was because of God’s grace and power. He enabled me to do what I needed to do at the time, and He will always do the same thing for you if you ask Him to. We may not know the future, but if we know the One Who holds the future in His hands, we can look forward to it expectantly and without fear. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.