Get rid of doubt and trust God to be God.

Doubt is insidious. It lies and insinuates itself into your very belief system. It twists truth just enough to pull the foundation out of your faith so what you once believed seems shallow or baseless.

If you have any doubt about God at all, settle it now. The word of God is His truth. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. (2Tim 3;16) Either that is true or not. If you don’t believe it, then you have no basis for believing anything about God.

If you do believe it, then believe it. God is who He says He is. He is the top of the pyramid. No one is higher or more powerful. Period. So why does it seem like He’s not there or doing anything?

Free will. He lets us decide what we will believe. If we trust Him and put our lives in His hands the way He told us to, He will be everything we ask Him to be. But if we doubt, nothing will happen. In fact, very often, if we doubt, the opposite of what we want will happen.

Trust God to be God, because He is. Trust that He loves you wildly, because He does. Get rid of doubt and let your faith take hold of truth and you will see the heavens open for you.

Even when you know you are hearing from God, it can seem like the rug has been pulled out from under you for no obvious reason. We usually think that when things go bad, it’s because something we’ve done wrong, or something someone’s done to us. We don’t tend to think that it’s God.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Mat 4:1) Jesus didn’t decide to go to the wilderness to fast, the Spirit led Him there. That cannot have been a fun time, but it was the kick-off event of Jesus’s ministry and God intended Him to go through it.

Trials will have you better than you were.

If you don’t see an obvious reason for why the trials have come, just hang in there. Be patient. There is a lesson in it for you, and if you will trust God to be with you, you’ll grow and be stronger in faith than you were before you started. He’s changing your character. He’s showing you just how big He is for your situation.

Trials don’t mean you’re in trouble. They mean that you are being polished. That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1Pet 1:7)

We are all expected to contribute in the kingdom of God. But just like in the real world, the church lives with the 80/20 rule. Twenty per cent of the people do all the work and ministry and eighty percent let them. We have made it ok to not be active in the kingdom. We’ve made it ok to let other people do what we don’t have time for.

No matter how little you have, God can use you.

To be fair, a lot of people feel that they just don’t have anything to contribute. When you are still learning, it feels like there’s nothing to give. I understand, but let’s look at what God did with a little boy’s lunch. It was not fancy. It was not professionally prepared. It was as plain and simple as you could make it. That’s the lunch that God used to feed His people.

If you feel like you have nothing to offer, you need to look again. Everything that you have learned to date is enough to offer. If you only know a little, then that’s what you share with others. And if you have learned a lot over the years, then you have even more to share. Just do it. Life is just as busy for the twenty percent as it is for the eighty. But when you give what you have to God, He does amazing things with it. Your little lunch can go a very long way.

Teach your children to pray. Teach them from as early an age as you can. Let them know how normal it is to pray and watch God answer. Let them watch you pray and sing and encourage people. They will hear what you say, but they will learn what they see.

Teach your children to pray.

The faith of children is truly dynamic, as in “relating to physical force or energy”. Their faith is not filtered or adulterated with bad philosophy or theology. It’s pure power, because truth is truth to them.

Show them how to ask God for what they need. Include them in family prayer. Let them pray over their friends and their pets. Never, never prevent them from praying for you. If you’ve never had a child pray for you, you have no idea how powerful it is.

Don’t assume that you have to teach children a watered down version of the gospel. The same Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is theirs as well. God loves to partner with kids, and they will see Him work in amazing ways. Let them pray for healing. Read them stories in the Bible about how God used children and encourage them to trust God. The earlier the better. Those are the kids that will be world-changers.

His glory will be seen upon you.

You know what happens when you start to live a fully dedicated life to God? You get filled with His joy. The more you trust Him, the more He blesses. Even in sudden times of conflict, you trust Him, He still blesses. You trust Him more, He blesses more. He will bless to the measure that you trust Him.

And you know what else? His glory will be seen upon you. (Isa 60:2) Yep. Other people will see the blessing of God on you. If they didn’t know you before you became a believer, they’ll just think that you are naturally awesome. If they did know you before, they’ll be amazed at the transformation they can see happening, because living in faith will transform you.

Even though you don’t feel it, God’s glory is on you. It’s actually shining out of you. The more joy and love of God in your life, the brighter that glory will shine. You’ll be a lighthouse in dark places. Do not feel bad because you don’t see it. You probably won’t see it. That’s the way humility works, but others will see it.

Live with faith and joy and God will do things in you and through you that will affect people far beyond anything that you know. One day you will be amazed and bless God for it.

Some people know how to live in blessing.

Have you ever met people who seem to get all the blessings? I mean, all of them? Everything they touch is golden, and favor follows them around like a puppy. They even boast about being God’s favorite. Now you know that’s not right, because God doesn’t have favorites. Or does He?

Why is it that those people are so blessed! It’s because they know that God actually does have favorites. In point of fact, we are all His favorites. It’s just that some people understand it and others don’t. The ones who do understand live in the favored blessing.

So how do you get in that club? It’s easy. You just believe God. You believe everything He says. If He says to stop worrying, you stop worrying. If He says to love Him with all your heart, then you love Him with all your heart. Believe the Word of God as truth, and live it, and you will be smack in the middle of the Favor Club.

If you fuss about what is right and wrong, if you stress about being perfect or out of order, you will not get in. Your attention has to be fully on Jesus so that He can work out all the details you stress over. If you are not living in favor, then ask God why. Let Him show you what He wants from you. Favor can be yours if you are honest before God and want His will above yours.

**************************************************************************The Key of David, by Diana Symons                                                                                             A story that’s been told for thousands of years…  The Bible’s Book 1 Samuel tells the story of David’s life – from an obscure family to an unlikely king, from shepherd to warrior, from champion to king-maker. What does it mean for a man to love God and be loved by Him? This book explores what it means to be human in the light of the Kingdom.

Faith is just trusting God to be God.

It almost seems cavalier to say, Oh, just trust God. Like you know what that means, when really, you don’t know what that means. I’ve been there. I thought I was trusting God, until it became clear that I wasn’t. I only knew about God.

Faith requires some level of activity on your part. Let’s say that you are worried that you’ll never get all the things done today that have to be done, because all of them are urgent or necessary. First, calm yourself. Settle your spirit in peace. Ask God to manage what you cannot. Ask Him to help you do what needs to be done.

Then do what you need to do. Faith is not about sitting on your hands and watching angels do your work. But as you work, trust that God will help you do it all. Don’t stress. The second you start to stress, you stop trusting God. Thank Him for what He is doing for you. Be happy. He is working on your behalf, because you asked Him to.

Looking for a job? Keep sending out the resumes, but know that God will take care of you. Don’t stress. Stress is agreeing with the enemy. God will do what He promises to do, and He promises to take care of you. Believe Him and be happy.

Living in faith is all about trusting God to be God and not worrying. He’ll be there for you. He really will.

You know those days when Murphy’s Law goes into overdrive? I had one of those yesterday. I won’t go into details, but trust me. at the end of the day I was miserable. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I was bothered by it all night and kept claiming the peace of God to settle my spirit.

When I got up this morning, I wasn’t looking forward to going to work. I knew what I had to face — the effects of yesterday. But then a wonderful thing happened. The Lord spoke to me. Quietly, in my heart, I heart Him say, When the enemy comes in like a flood.

At first, I didn’t pay attention to it until it repeated two or three times. Then I had to stop and think about. What is that verse anyway? So I looked it up. When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. (Isa 59:19)

The Lord will go before you.

Awesome! Suddenly my day went from depressing to jubilant. I could easily see the angel of the Lord planting a huge flag on a pole in front of the hoards of the enemy. Planting that flag sends shock waves through the enemy ranks and the scatters them like fleas.

My day has been nothing like yesterday. The atmosphere has been completely different and I am so grateful to God for going before me. He worked because I trusted Him to work. If I had ignored His word, or failed to trust Him, I would still be stressed. So, how is your day going?

Will you search out the things of God?

God is not insignificant, two-dimensional, or irrelevant. He is big, complex, and very much alive and near. If you want more out of your life as a believer, then go for it. There is so much more to have and to know.

Jesus said, Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Mat 7:7) One definition of the word seek means, to try to find by searching. That is not casual. How badly do you want more out of your faith? Are you glancing about when it is convenient, or are you really looking under every rock, so to speak.

Jesus promised that if we would search for more, we would find it. If we ask for more, we would get it. Those aren’t idle promises. He wasn’t teasing us, He was promising us. If you really want to know more of God, if you want to see Him move in miraculous ways in your life, then start trusting Him to be exactly who He says He is.

Ask for big things and believe that you will get them. Ask for more understanding of who God is, and He will show Himself. It’s His word, so He will do what He said He would.