Category: Today’s Truth

We live in a broken, desolate land. We see people dying, relationships torn apart, and a nation divided. We are in desperate need of healing. Yet people have turned away from the Lord and tried going their own way. God has been patient with us, desiring for us to change our ways and choose Him. But we will meet our own destruction if we continue to go down the path we are headed down. Christians must seek Him and pray for Him to heal our land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 Yes tells us that if we want to see healing in our land we have to pray and seek the face of God. So Christians, we can’t just sit by and watch as the world walks down a dark path that leads to death. We have to be actively seeking the face of God. We also have to believe that if we seek his face he will hear the prayers of his people just like he did time and time again in the word of God. Remember when Abraham went before God pleading on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah? God said that he would not destroy the land if he found but even one faithful person in the land. God ended up destroying Solomon good Maura because there were no faithful people. In our land today there are faithful people who are seeking his face on behalf of their nation. We must believe that our voices will be heard when we are crying together.

Spend time in prayer today for your friends, your family, your community, and our nation. Go before the Lord and his throne and cry out on behalf of all of the people you know who do not know. Turn toward him and believe that he can heal our nation.

Have you ever had a strained friendship or relationship? Maybe the two of you did not see eye to eye or maybe the relationship was broken because of sin and deceit. There are many tools the devil can use to break apart God’s people. He loves to use other Christians to carry out his plans. He is deceitful and 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” He will bring disunity if he can! How can we restore broken relationships or be alert when the enemy is trying to break apart relationships?

First, pray for the broken friendship or relationship. Pray that God can bring about restoration and make what was broken whole again. Pray that He will give you an opportunity to try and mend it. God is the God of the impossible. If He gave Sarah a baby at 90 years old and brought forth Jesus from a virgin, He can do anything. Trust that He will restore it if that is part of His will. Second, look at what went wrong and see if there is something you need to ask for forgiveness for. Even when we think that we are not in the wrong, there is usually a little bit of truth to be found. Can you make things right by asking for forgiveness from the person you wronged? Third, use this as a lesson to be alert when the enemy attacks your relationships. He doesn’t want to see God’s people coming together in fellowship and worship so he will do anything he can to attack it.

Trust in the Lord to heal friendships and restore what was broken. Know that there is nothing difficult or impossible for Him. Nothing surprises Him or shakes Him off of His throne. He is always in control.

God is the mender in our lives. He is the only one who can pick up the pieces and put them back together. He can restore what was broken. If we drop a clay pot and it shatters, we can work and work to try and glue each piece where it once was, but it will never be the same again. God, however, not only picks up the pieces, but He puts them back together and makes it look like new again. He is the only one who can. We cannot put ourselves back together.

In the Old Testament, the people of Israel would burn sacrifices to offer something pleasing to God and try and mend the broken relationship. The sacrifices were meant to cover their sins, yet there were never enough. They had different sacrifices for different types of sins, too. David realized in Psalm 51 that the actual action of the sacrifices was not what God delighted in. In fact he said in verse 16, “You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering.” What he realized changed his entire relationship with God. He said in verse 17, “The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” David realized that what God really desired of Him was a broken and repentant heart! It was about the attitude of his heart, not the actions of his hands. Our hands can lift up in praise, but if we are not repenting before Him, then our praise means nothing!

Jesus became the sacrifice once and for all in the New Testament. He sacrificed His life for our sins so that we could be free in Christ. What do you need to do today to fix what has been broken? How can you restore your relationship with God? It starts with prayer and asking for Him to accept your repentance and forgive you for straying away. He will mend what was once broken!

Psalm 18:2 says “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” God is our rock. He is the foundation for the Christian life. When there is a shaky foundation, then everything about it can crumble. With a strong foundation, the Christian Life will be secure, strong, and built to last. Matthew 7:24 states that anyone who is wise and listens to the teaching of the Lord is like someone who builds their house upon a rock. Nothing will destroy the house, not the rains, the floods, severe storms, or anything else because it is built to last. The verse goes on to say that if anyone hears God’s teaching but doesn’t obey, then they are like someone who builds her house upon the sand. The second the fierce storms come, the house will be easily washed away.

God is the rock. He is the fortress where we can retreat to and find safety. In his salvation, He delivers, with His shield, He protects us from the enemy. He is our stronghold, a well fortified fortress. Nothing can penetrate the walls around us when we allow him to fight for us. He never moves. He never leaves us. If we find ourselves without his protection, it is only because we have left the shelter of His love. Everyday we have to choose to live, move, and breathe in His presence. We have to trust that His way is better and He knows our future.

So find solitude in His presence, safety in His shelter, salvation in His Fortress, and comfort in His arms. There is no God like our God and no other way to salvation than coming to Him through Jesus Christ. He is our rock.

Faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit that requires action. It is not enough to make promises and say that you are going to do something or be something; you have to prove that you mean what you say when you live according to those promises and are faithful to others. Faithfulness is something that can be hard for us to do on our own because the devil desperately wants us to be unfaithful so we discredit who God is. God is the one who teaches us how to be faithful. So why is it so important to be faithful to God and others?

When we are faithful to God, we show Him that he means everything to us. We make Him a priority when we are faithful to Him. When we are faithful to others, we show them that we care about them, and we also show the world who God is. For some people, the only time they see the attributes of God is when they look at a Christian’s life. If they see someone who is unfaithful and breaks promises, then they think that is what the Christian life is about and who God is. Faithfulness to God and others shows how we really feel about God. It proves our words to either be true or it disproves everything we say.

God can teach us how to be faithful if we will let Him. It is not in His nature to be unfaithful. He does not break promises, He does what He says He’s going to do, and He proves His words to be true over and over again. All we have to do is open the Bible and we will see many examples of His faithfulness to man since the beginning of time. If we let His words train us and reign in our hearts, then we will also prove what He said to be true in the Bible.

Psalms 23 tells us that surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. Goodness and mercy go together. If you’re someone who gives mercy, then you are also giving out of the goodness of your heart. A lack of mercy for others also shows a lack of goodness in someone’s heart. Goodness is the evidence of a changed life.

Sometimes it can be hard to see the good in the world, but God is good which means there is still good in the world. There are still people who choose good over evil and right or wrong. There are people who are living their lives according to the Word of God. They have hidden his Word in their hearts. Are you one of those people? If you are, then goodness should be flowing from you. We live in a fallen world, so it can sometimes feel impossible to always choose good. The enemy makes the choice complicated, and his desire is to lead you away from what is good. Philippians 4:8 tells us to think about what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. It also says to think about things that are excellent or good and worthy of praise. It begins in the mind. When you think about the good things of God, those things will shine through you. God wants us to think about things that are good, but the enemy wants to pollute our brains so we only focus on the bad, the difficult, and the perverse.

God has given you, Christian, the ability to think about the good, to talk about the good, and to do good. He is giving you the ability to offer mercy to those who need mercy out of the goodness of your heart. Pray and ask Him today to be everything you need so that you can show the world the good He has done in your life.

Have you ever been grieved over a decision you made and the outcome? Or maybe you were grieved over your sin and the damage it did in your life. Sin always leads us away from God and the abundant life He has for us. John 10:10 states that the thief’s purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy, but Jesus came to give us a rich and satisfying life. Yet, since we have a human nature, we sometimes choose our flesh over our spiritual life. We say no to the spirit and yes to ourselves. Before we know it, we spiral out of control and are in the midst of a sinful lifestyle. This should shake us to the core and grieve our hearts.

Godly grief always leads us back to repentance as 2 Corinthians 7:10 says (For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.). This is the type of sorrow He wants us to have- a sorrow that leads us away from the enemy and back toward Him. A godly grief for our rebellious nature will always lead us to repentance. We can only serve Him and bring Him glory if we let repentance have its way in our lives.

God will always forgive us and take us back after we’ve sinned if we have a broken heart over what we’ve done. A child never truly learns until they understand the gravity of their mistakes. We will never truly learn until we fall down on our knees in grief.

People want to have others in their lives who they can trust and count on. It is disappointing when someone says they will do something and then they fail to do it. Or when they act one way at church on Sunday, but the rest of their days don’t match their Sunday life. Even the lost world can see right through a believer who is not trustworthy. So how can you live your life in such a way that makes others trust you?

First, place your trust in God as your source. Isaiah 26: 3-4 says, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.” We will be a trustworthy person when our lives and our eyes are fixed on the Lord. He will keep us in perfect peace. He will be our trust! He will teach us how to trust others and He will teach us how to be true to our words. This is the way Jesus lived. He was always faithful and kept His promises. Next, live in such a way that gives others reasons to trust you. Follow Jesus and His examples He set. When you do, you won’t give those around you reasons to question you as a trustworthy person.

Be the person others can count on. Be the person who points others to Jesus. Make Him look good! Make others want to know Him and trust Him more. Your witness will either lead people to the Lord or will lead them away from Him, so make sure you are living a trustworthy life!

Trusting the people God puts in our lives can be a difficult task. Even Christians wrong us and don’t always treat us right. The world does not trust others, so it is hard to place our trust in others when the world puts the message out there that we need to “keep our friends close and our enemies closer.” While it is okay to be guarded, the walls we put up should never close others off. We need people in our lives to encourage us and spur us on. We need the fellowship of other believers so we can praise God together. Matthew 18:20 tells us that where two or more are gathered, there He is also. When we gather together, He is in our midst! So we must not stop meeting together.

People are going to fail you. We see that throughout the Bible. Jacob loved his brother Esau, but he knew that Esau was a godless person and would deceive him if he had the chance. Jacob had deceived him a few times, so they were both guarded with each other but loved each other. People will fail, but we can continue to love them and care about them. The closest people in our lives should be the ones who better our relationships with God. These people help keep us accountable and love us even when we fail. We should always have relationships with the lost, but our closest people should lift us up and not tear us down or influence us negatively.

Pray and ask God to put people in your life you can trust and who will build up your relationship with them, people who are pursuing the Lord and His Word. The world needs Jesus, and we can only witness when we stand together.

Before we can ever move forward in our relationship with the people in our lives and in our relationship with the Lord, we must learn to trust in Him first. The word trust has several definitions on Dictionary.com. The first definition says “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc. of a person or thing: confidence.” The second definition says “confident expectation of something: hope.” Now think of that in terms of the Lord. Do you trust in His confidence: His integrity, His strength, His ability, and surety? What an amazing thought. God has confidence; He is so sure that He is able to care for you, love you, and protect you.

God is trustworthy because He is the God of the Universe and He created everything. He knows every planet, every person, every hair on your head. He is trustworthy because He was here in the beginning, He knows what will happen tomorrow, and He holds the future. We have a hard time trusting in Him because we want to do it on our own. We think we know better, but we have no understanding of the way the world works. As 1 Corinthians 3:19 states, “The wisdom of man is but foolishness to God.” The wisest man still doesn’t understand the ways of God. So He is trustworthy!

Proverbs 3 says that we should trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our understanding. God knows better than we do just as a parent knows better than a child. When they tell the child not to touch the hot stove, it is because they know and understand what will happen when they do touch it! When God answers our prayers with a “no” or “wait” that is because He knows better and understands the outcomes. He is trustworthy with our lives.