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April 8 - May 19, 2018
We spend too much time concealing our neediness. We need to stop hiding. Being needy is our basic condition.
If we respond with, “I don’t understand all this, but I know that my Father loves me, and I trust him,” we will live with purpose, hope, and perseverance. If we remember the promises of God in our testing and turn to him, trouble can feel light and momentary (2 Cor. 4:17) when compared to the riches we have in him.
What is especially important, however, is that he is not grumbling or challenging God with his words. No, he is crying out and directing his words to the promise-making and promise-keeping God, who really does hear.
God’s gracious forgiveness makes his name great. No one else, real or imagined, claims to forgive sins like he does, so we are pleased to say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12).
The hardships of life provoke our prayer for help. Confession and forgiveness assure us that God will, indeed, help. Then our hearts are deflected from our circumstances and toward the Lord himself.
If our knowledge of God is weak, we are left with a god who is a strange composite of truth, satanic lies, our projected desires and expectations, our experiences with our parents, and the accumulation of life’s hurts. This is not the God of the cross who loved us while we were enemies, and this composite will not sustain us.
we can make everything in Scripture a prayer. For example, every command in Scripture becomes an occasion for confession—“Lord, I fall far short, please forgive me”—and a request for power—“Lord, give me power to follow you fully.”
When we recount with our community God’s answers to our prayers, we are laying spiritual monuments that we hope will have more endurance than mere stones. We hope they build up the body of Christ on earth.
if our thankfulness is grounded on only those things we can see with our eyes, which do not have longevity, we will, someday, have no reason to be thankful,
The kingdom of heaven is by no means quiet. When we have good news, it should be announced.
Would you listen to someone who helps you merely out of duty rather than love?
That would depend a lot on the context of the help being given and the position of the person trying to help. I also don't necessarily see how helping me in love has something to do with "seeing the good in me." That's not really even a biblical category.
It is the way he starts every letter.
Except Galatians.
What makes this letter unique is that the recipients were bad.
They were ALL bad! Read Galatians!
The goal here is to keep our eyes open for good things in others. When we see good things, we savor them and point them out. As you get to know people, you will encounter many hard things, some unattractive things, but if you also see good, you will see people more as God does, and that is a blessing.
It's a bit clunky to say "God sees us as good." There's a lot more that needs to be unpacked about how God sees us in Christ, and why.
Suffering is the trouble that comes at us. Sin is the trouble that comes out of us.
In our attempts to help, we can overinterpret suffering. We search for clues to God’s ways, as if suffering were a scavenger hunt. Get to the end, with the right answers, and God will take away the pain. Meanwhile, the quest for answers is misguided from the start and will end badly.
other words, when we put sin off-limits, we cannot defend ourselves as being polite people who merely avoid meddling. Rather, we are Pharisees who, during a leisurely walk, avoid eye contact with the dying person we almost trip over. We are neglecting matters of life and death.
Humility is surprisingly sturdy in the face of anger.
Hope knows the love of Jesus and grows in confidence that all the promises God makes have already been yes in Jesus.
