Can You stand on His Promises?

It has been such a wonderful weekend. Yesterday, we went to see the movie, "War Room," with our daughter and her family and the Van Doren family. Such a reminder of the importance of praying Scripture over those we love and praying without ceasing always. In my own personal life there have been so many answered prayers it would be impossible not to see God's hand on my life and the lives of those I have prayed for. Has every prayer been answered in the way I prayed it might be.mNo, but God is still God and I can trust Him with all of the outcomes. This morning we attended church and this was the final week in a sermon series entitled, "Stand." Pastor Shaddy reminded us that there are always storms in our lives, but asked the question is our foundation stronger than our storms? Standing strong in the midst of the storms is often difficult as we know there are others who are judging us by the world's standards.who think we are wrong for standing firm on God's Word. For those of us who walk with the Lord, even imperfectly at times, obedience to His Word is what He desires from us. Pastor Shaddy reminded us that God's Word is not like a salad bar...we don't get to choose only the parts we like. In the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar created a gold statue of himself and wanted everyone to bow down to it. Daniel and his 3 young friends refused to do so. They took a stand and believed God would take care of them. We need to have a faith that obeys God instead of a faith that follows after what the world is telling us we should do. We live in a culture that says, "God will understand if I ________ (fill in the blank) and He will forgive me. He is a forgiving God, but He is also a God who desires us to repent and follow after Him. He is also the God who we will stand in judgement before one day. We are called to have faith to believe in spite of what we see. I remember when our daughter was pregnant with her youngest son. A routine sonogram showed that this little one could have an issue with his kidneys. Of course, we were concerned , but we prayed daily over this child believing that God would fix whatever the issue with his kidneys might be. He was delivered early in the morning in July of 2006 and an X-ray shortly after his birth...his kidneys were fine. So, yes, I do believe in the power of prayer. The enemy would like us to focus on what we see, but God wants us to trust and believe Him for what we cannot see---that's faith. Daniel and his friends were faithful to God, they believed that even if God didn't save them they would be alright. They didn't cave in to the demands of the world. In the end, God did save them from the fiery furnace and this King who wanted people to bow down and worship Him...well, he actually ended up praising the God worshipped by these men who were willing to lay down their lives because they trusted God. Do you have other gods in your life? The 1st commandments admonishes us to have no other gods before the one true God. Yesterday in the movie Miss Clara, the prayer warrior asked Lizabeth why she couldn't give one hour of her day to the Lord. Do you have an hour in your day to spend time with the Lord? I am not pointing a finger at anyone because I too need to carve out sacred time to be with Jesus. What would happen if our families, in our communities if we put God In charge of our lives,if we prayed and if we spent time worshipping the God who so abundantly gives us so much? If we were wiling to take Him at His word and stop making excuses as to why we can't go to church or why we don't have time to pray I believe we would see miracle after miracle unfold. Are you willing to take God at His Word and to have faith that will impact the next generation?

Comments

[Bob Thomas]

Well Cindie, as I told you earlier, throughout my life it has been a journey for me not being able to drive because of being legally blind and also having difficulties with my hearing due to sever hearing loss that I knew that I could not do this journey alone. I knew that the only way was to rely on a holy God to help me survive in my career and also to meet a wonderful woman who became my best friend and later my wife. God has blessed us with 3 beautiful children and has provided for us in the best of times and even in the worst of times. I truly believe in the power of prayer and also believe that in God's time He will make all things right. So yes, the War Room movie and Pastor Shaddy's message just reinforces us to never give up and know that God is always in control. I love this article and love you forever. Bob