I recently came across these statements: “Nobody ruins my day. Nobody makes me angry. Nobody gets me in a bad mood. As a matter of fact I am fully capable of doing that on my own and would like to step up and say that when my day is ruined, when I am angry and when my mood is foul…you nor anyone else get the credit – I alone allowed that sorry reality to grasp my attitude and then I ran with it.”

Stress is a reality for all of us and human selfishness has been an open door for our anger throughout the entire history of mankind. It is high time we quit looking for somewhere to offload responsibility for our less-than-holy attitudes and outlooks.

Why can I say this with such boldness?

Because of this promise from God’s Word … “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” – Isaiah 26:3

When I am frustrated that my needs are not being met by others in my life, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I am convinced that my circumstances are unjust and it tempts me toward bitterness, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I allow anxiety over material needs or future provision to undermine my present trust, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I feel the unhealthy need for the approval of someone so that it changes my behavior, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I seek to predict and control the behavior of those whom I distrust, when I try to anticipate the next move of my enemy, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I am prayerless, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I read my Bible and think of how what I am reading speaks to the deficiencies in other people, and do not first consider my own need for change, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I am unthankful, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I ignore the call to invest my time, money, and energy in ongoing Kingdom endeavors, my mind is not fixed on God.

When I lie to myself and believe that I can find fulfillment in this world and its treasures, my mind is not fixed on God.

When my thoughts are on me and mine, my mind is not fixed on God.

So I learn that the thing upon which I most often think becomes my eventual master.

My list could go on but I think we all get the picture. So I find myself looking in the mirror again and recognizing my need for spiritual perception and growth. You probably are honest enough to see the same need in your life.

In conclusion, the verse in Isaiah that follows the one cited above is good for us to embrace as we move forward. Here is something from God upon which to fix our minds … “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” Isaiah 26:4

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

I would like you to take a few moments today to prayerfully consider what all of the following just might have in common:

• A stain on your carpet
• A dent in your car
• A tear in your pants
• A limp in your walk
• A scar on your body
• A lost wallet
• A hole in your wall

All of these, and many other examples I’m sure you could think of, can be reminders of some kind of unpleasant experience in your life. In the Old Testament economy, God’s people had constant reminders of their sinful natures. With every new sin they committed, whether it was a sin of commission or omission, intentional or unintentional, they were faced with these reminders …

• The sound of a bleating lamb
• The smell of fresh-spilled blood
• The sight of smoke rising from the altar

Every sin required a “sin offering” in order for the sin to be covered and cleansed. This process accomplished two very important things: first, the sinner was constantly reminded of the seriousness and sinfulness of sin; second, the sinner was reminded of being restored in relationship with God.

Glory be to God, today we need only one reminder –  the cross! We are to daily remember the cross, where our Lord and Savior hung on our behalf and died in our place.

Jesus paid the price for our sin – all of our sin – once for all. We are totally free from the endless requirements of making sacrifices for our sins. The cross reminds us of this incredible truth: when Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant what He said!

The devil would rather have you be reminded of your past sins daily. He wants to keep you as a prisoner, chained to your painful past. DON’T YOU LET HIM DO IT!

Keep the cross in view daily. Keep the the Gospel before you daily. Remember what Jesus has done for you daily, and you will know the freedom and joy of what it means to be living under the banner of the finished work of Christ.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  Over the course of my Christian life I found have myself being drawn more and more deeply into something that Jesus once prayed … “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children…”  (Luke 10:21).  When things become “complicated”  and “difficult”  we need to remember that God has revealed His truth for life and eternity for even the simplest of us (2 Peter 1:3, “As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.”)

I am, my friends, a sola scriptura man. To be one who embraces this phrase means that I am one who looks to the Bible as the final and supreme authority of all issues pertaining to faith and life. Sola scriptura was the rallying cry of the Protestant Reformation. The phrase is Latin: combining the word sola having the idea of “alone,” “ground,” or “base,” and the word scriptura meaning “writings” – referring to the Scriptures. Sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is authoritative and adequate for the faith and practice of the Christian. What is interesting is that many today feel that such a position is too simplistic an approach to the many issues of life. Many are insisting that we include other sources than Scripture (opinions of others, experiences of ourselves and others, etc) in deciding life issues. Yet, I have found that when addressing and answering life’s most difficult issues, the answer comes when I focused on the question, “But what do the Scriptures say?”

One of my prayers over the last several years has included a plea that God would raise up a people who will remain aligned with His Word. That sounds reasonable –even spiritual – but my prayers have produced more conflict than I ever imagined. Conflict within me and conflict outside of me.

A tenacious commitment to aligning yourself with God’s Word will bring you into conflict with modern trends and mindless traditions; this commitment will leave you standing, as the writer of Hebrews said, “…naked and exposed before His eyes, and He is the One to whom we are accountable.”

My hope for all of us is that we will regain a militant commitment to remain aligned with God’s truth. Now, when I write the word militant I am only saying that we should be disciplined, steadfast and unwavering in our commitment to God’s inspired truth. I do not wish to be a frowning militant, or a harsh militant, or an unloving militant. I believe we can be gentle but militant, unapologetic but militant, gracious but militant, and loving but militant. As much as anything else we need to be consistent as followers of Jesus Christ and remain sola scriptura even when those Scriptures force us to rethink, recalibrate, release, and recommit. You can grow deeper by the Word. You can be assured by the Word. You can be helped by the Word. Eventually, however, you will be made uncomfortable by the Word. When your previously held views are challenged by what the Scriptures actually say you will find yourself at an inevitable crossroads: will I cling to what I have previously thought or will I welcome God’s Word to outweigh any opinion of man … including my own?

Jesus calls us to be like children in our relationship with Him. Children trust, often without question. Children will believe nearly anything, for better or for worse. Children will take almost everything handed to them. Jesus calls us to be like children when it comes to Him and His Kingdom. That does not mean that we should not look biblically at things – quite the opposite. But when we do so, we need to allow the Scriptures to say what they actually say and refrain from hearing them say what we wished they would say or have been told that they say. We must be like little children when it comes to Christ and the Kingdom. Why? Doesn’t that leave us vulnerable? Surely it would if Jesus were not so good, so trustworthy, so holy, so loving, so caring and so … for us. We can be like children with Him because He is the way, the truth, and the life and only wants what is best for us.

While the world thinks things are complicated and that it is difficult to know the truth, the Christian is comforted and encouraged to realize that the Bible aids us in our choices and commitments. I do not have to fill in the spaces which were intentionally left blank by God.

When it comes to God’s Word I will remain a child. I will just believe it. Sola scriptura has never once failed me and I believe it would be better to take God plainly at His Word and occasionally risk oversimplification than it would be for me to complicate His Word and ultimately miss what He says is true, right, and good.

I prayer those of you reading will arrive at the same conclusion.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

It was Francis Schaeffer, the American Evangelical Christian theologian, and philosopher who once referred to the grace of God as “the present value of the blood of Christ.” In essence, he was saying that we never grow past our need of the grace of the Gospel.

We are totally dependent on the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross every day! That precious blood that cleansed us from all unrighteousness when we were saved is the same precious blood that cleanses us from all unrighteousness as we are being sanctified (conformed into the image of Christ) along the road to glory (1 John 1:9). The Gospel is for sinners, you see, and we are still sinners after we have been saved.

God does not save us by grace and then expect that we work out our salvation by the spiritual sweat of our brow …

We are not only saved by the grace and truths of the Gospel,

We are also grown by that grace and those truths as well (1 Peter 2:2; 2 Peter 3:18).

Moment by moment, we are dependent on the grace of the Gospel to wash our every thought, word, deed, and desire in the fountain of Christ’s purifying blood. Every imperfect performance and impure motive must be cleansed by His precious blood.  Schaeffer was absolutely right in referring to God’s grace as “the present value of the blood of Christ,” because we are totally dependent upon it – both as the door into the Christian life and the floor upon which we build our Christian life.

So . . .

Have you been building your life on the Gospel or on your perceived good works?

Do you believe God is blessing you because of your merit . . . or His mercy?

Are you attempting to finish what God started in you?

Or are you trusting in the finished work of Christ?

It is only through Jesus and in Jesus alone that we make our way into our eternal rest, and every step of the way we are reminded of these words from the beautiful old hymn:

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh precious is the flow that makes me white as snow;

No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Have you met many Christians who mistakenly believe they have “arrived” in this life?  When they complete the education that most only dream about getting?  When they get the job promotion and that corner office that goes with it?  When that special someone says “Yes” to their marriage proposal?  When they are approved for the mortgage on a bigger and better home?  When the car they drive drives their friends mad with envy?  When the social circle they run in runs the city they live in?  When the ministry they lead leads the other ministries in the number of people showing up?  Yet on this side of the grave, the one thing the Christian never does is arrive.  To be sure, there is only one place where we will finally arrive, and it won’t happen until we get to the other side of the grave, when we will forever be in the unveiled presence of Jesus!  Is this the arrival you are anticipating?  Is this the arrival you are hoping for . . . longing for?

When we live in a state of anticipating our arrival on the other side of the grave, we are living in the light of eternity.  Everything we do is measured against what will bring the most value and glory to the Kingdom of God, as we live like pilgrims who are just passing through on our way to the celestial city.  As the apostle Paul says to the Philippians, “our citizenship is in heaven, not here on earth.”  So as we live in anticipation of that eternal glory, we pour ourselves out for the expansion of God’s big kingdom here and now, not the expansion of our own little kingdom.

The devil would like nothing more than to convince you that you have indeed arrived. He has done it to countless individuals in the church.  They profess Jesus as Lord, and yet put the stuff of this life on the throne of their lives.  The devil even attempted to do the very same thing to Jesus! Our Lord’s response gives us the model for resisting the things of this world that would convince us we have arrived

The Bible says in Matthew 4:8-11, “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”  Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”  Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”

The devil tried to get Jesus to think He had arrived, but Jesus would have none of it.  He knew what He was here to do and He would not allow anything to get in His way.  With every attempt the devil made to get Jesus to think He had arrived, Jesus quoted Scripture.  It’s important to understand that Jesus never told us to forsake everything in this life for what is to come in the next.  The blessings and pleasure of this life are some of God’s good gifts to us.  Education, professions, relationships, houses, and even cars are all good gifts given by our gracious God.  However, these good gifts become bad gifts when we make them ultimate gifts.  When we think we have arrived because of any good gifts we have been given, we have arrived at the wrong destination.

The Bible speaks about this in several places …

“You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.” (1 Corinthians 7:23)

“As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”  (1 Timothy 6:17)

“Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  (1 John 2:15)

These are just a few of many verses that help the disciple of Christ sharpen his or her focus on what it means to have arrived.  Short of Christ Himself, perhaps the most powerful example of a man who had truly arrived at the right destination was Paul, who declared in Philippians 3 that all the accomplishments from his life before Christ – his power, his prestige, his prominence in the community – were no more than rubbish, compared to “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” In the same passage, Paul went to proclaim that he was “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,” in order to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

I pray that these verses will serve to encourage you in your journey to the celestial city and your walk with Christ every step of the way, remembering that arrival happens not in this life, but in the next.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  Everyone wants to know the secret to making lasting change. Most people believe that the secret is willpower . . . until they discover that their “will” really has no lasting power! The Bible makes it crystal clear that the “how” of lasting change will only come through the “why” of lasting change. In other words, the why is the how!

Oh sure, our willpower can initiate change, but it is only temporary. Most of us have discovered this truth by watching our new years’ resolutions – “This year I’m going to eat right, exercise more, read the Bible more, stop this or that bad habit, pray more, serve more” and so on – falter and fade away. The reason, of course, is that only when the Spirit of God changes the hearts of Christian believers that we will ever realize lasting change. It all comes down to the difference between temporary behavior modification and lasting heart transformation.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ compels us.”

Lasting change will only come through a compelling love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Love for Christ, not personal power, will propel us into the clear blue waters of a changed life. When a compelling love for God inspires us to engage in spiritual warfare against the forces that want to keep us down and out, temporary change perseveres and becomes lasting change. We resist the temptations to sin simply because the love of Christ compels us to turn toward God and away from sin.

• Why forgive completely? Because the love of Christ compels us!
• Why serve faithfully? Because the love of Christ compels us!
• Why give generously? Because the love of Christ compels us!
• Why love unconditionally? Because the love of Christ compels us!

Bryan Chapell wrote in Holiness By Grace, “A love for God made vital and vigorous by sensing deeply His compassion toward us is the primary means that enables believers to resist Satan.” The love, mercy, and compassion of Christ is always and in every way the only compelling why behind every lasting how.

So . . . how is Christ’s love compelling you lately? If you’d have to candidly answer, “Not as much as I’d like,” perhaps you need a clearer vision of the hill Golgotha, where the Son of God took your place on that rough wooden cross. If there is no greater love than to lay your life down for someone else, then we need look no further than the cross to keep before us the only WHY we will ever need to be what God is calling us to be.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

Numbers 13 recounts what happened when Israel camped on the outskirts of Canaan.  God told Moses to select one man from each of Israel’s twelve tribes to go in and scout the land that God had promised to give to them. Ten of those men saw giants; two only saw their giant God!

So . . . what do you see as you face your “Canaans” today? Are you more focused on the obstacles you are facing or on Omnipotence of God? Do you trust that He will overcome all those obstacles as you move into the life He has promised you?  Are you more focused on your problems or on the Prince of Peace?

We all need to be reminded daily that it is not the size of the giants we face in life that makes the difference in how our lives work out, it’s the size of our God! And our God is bigger than any giant we will ever face. From the boardroom to the locker room to the family room, we all look toward our own “Canaan,” and we can become deeply discouraged if we focus on the wrong things. We can let the giants of life get the best of us, just like the ten spies did who convinced a nation to live by sight rather than by faith.

Joshua and Caleb saw the same giants and fortified cities the other ten spies saw, but they chose to focus more on the size of their God than the size of the giants that stood in their path. They had seen God deliver Israel from 400 years of bondage in Egypt.  They walked through the Red Sea on dry ground and saw the pursuing Egyptians swallowed up by the sea.  They knew that nothing was impossible with God!

Can the same be said about you today? Regardless of whatever trouble you are facing in your personal “Canaan,” you are not facing it alone. You face it with a God who is bigger, stronger, and wiser than any giant you will ever encounter. Because the Israelites listened to the ten spies who focused more on giants than on their God, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Wilderness wandering is reserved for those who shift their focus away from God and put it on the giants of life.

But this is not for you! The cure for whatever “Canaan” you are facing is to remember that “greater is He who is in you than the anything that is in the world.” You have His Word on it!

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

Today is my wife Kay’s special day! Allow me a line or two of personal privilege as I wish her a happy birthday.  Babe, I praise the Lord for you and am so thankful He created you and brought you into my life.  Here is my birthday prayer for you …

May God’s blessings abound to you
In every little way
May you taste and see His goodness
Every time you kneel to pray
May your day be brightened more
With your Father’s loving touch
And may you sense He’s with you now
And loves you very much.

I am so blessed to have Kay as my wife, the mother of our children, fellow-servant in the ministry, and best friend! Her sweet spirit and sacrificial love for her family are not only great encouragements but examples of how God wants us to care for one another. I use this testimony to introduce the topic for today.

God makes it clear that the life of the Christian is to be marked by caring for others.  The Bible says in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  We are called to live an “other-oriented” life. So how do we demonstrate that we care for others? My experiences as a pastor, husband, dad, and friend have taught me that it is more about making contact than offering a cure.

My greatest teacher in the school of life has been Kay. I simply can’t count how many times she has come to me to share some situation she was dealing with – whether as a wife, a mother, a sister, a counselor, or a friend – and the only thing I could think of was declaring the appropriate “cure,” so I could cross that issue off my list and get on to the next thing. In other words, I was quick to find the cure without ever taking the time to really connect and make contact! And more often than not, all Kay wanted me to do was simply to listen and connect, rather than offering up some lame cure.

Caring is about contact far more than it is about a cure. You see, in God’s economy, we are to be the tangible evidence of His care, and the only way we can be that evidence is by making contact at a heart level with others. I call this the ministry of our presence. Sometimes the best ministry we can ever do is simply by showing up. We demonstrate that we care for others by simply being there for them!

Those of us who are familiar with the book of Job tend to think of Job’s three friends as “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2), who were long on opinions and bereft of any empathy. We often forget that immediately after Job lost everything, his friends were there for him – they simply showed up and shut up and let God use their contact as a ministry of caring.

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. (Job 2:11-13)

In their seven days of silence, Job’s friends were wonderful comforters! I think many of us hesitate to go visit a Christian brother or sister who has just experienced some personal disaster, such as a death in the family, because we feel like we wouldn’t know what to say that would be wise and godly and comforting. Here’s the thing: you don’t have to say anything! Just sit there and listen and love them with Christ’s love. Job’s three friends were doing great until they started to speak!

Kay will tell you that early in our marriage I was very much like Job’s friends . . . after their seven days of silence. I had an answer to every question she wasn’t asking and a cure for every ill that needed no cure. I have learned the hard way – and through my wife’s gracious, patient ministry – that we can express our caring far more powerfully by making contact rather than finding a cure!

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  I love the line from Forrest Gump: “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” It’s a delightful way of echoing the cliché, “Life is full of surprises.” Some of those surprises are good ones; some are not so pleasant. Yet through it all, we are loved and cared for by a God who is never surprised.

God is sovereign! Nothing ever “happens” to you that catches God by surprise. To be sure, we are often surprised, but God never is. There are simply no events in our lives that do not first pass through His outstretched arms and nail-scarred hands.

That ought to be a great comfort to you today!

This knowledge sustained Joseph during a most difficult and “surprising” time in his life. He forgave his brothers – who had thrown him down an empty well, originally had plans to kill him, but they finally decided to sell him into slavery – saying, “It was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.” (Genesis 45:8)

From the time he was 17 years old through age 30, Joseph received one “bad” surprise after another: hated by his brothers for telling the truth . . . falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife . . . forgotten by an ungrateful cupbearer. Then came a different kind of surprise: in one day, Joseph was raised from the prison to the palace.

Joseph undoubtedly was surprised by these dramatic changes, but deep down in his heart he knew that God was not. He understood that it was by God’s hand that he experienced both desolation and deliverance. Joseph fully understood the sovereignty of God and recognized that the things that happen in life are not a random roll of the dice, but all part of God’s perfect plan. Did Joseph understand it all? Absolutely not. But Joseph came to realize that when …

He could not understand God’s work

He could trust His heart!

Can the same be said about you today? Looking back over your life, can you think of a time that stands out as a season of struggle? A time when it seemed like God was either sleeping or on vacation? I certainly remember such times, and that is why, as has been so profoundly said,

Life Needs To Be Lived Backwards.

It’s hard to see God in the storms that blow our way sometimes, but when we look back, we can see His handprints all over those trials. God not only sends the storms, He is in the middle of them with us!

The sovereignty of God means there is a gracious purpose for our lives; and that purpose is being rightly accomplished, even in every painful providence. We may not see it at the time, but we can be assured that nothing ever catches our God by surprise. He is working all things together for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28).

Sovereignty means that everything in our lives happens for a reason . . . and that reason has been in the mind of God from all eternity – a God who loved you so deeply that He sent His beloved Son to die on a cross for you.

There are no surprises, because we are secure in God’s sovereignty.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  There is a lot of emphasis today on eating right to be healthy. Having played sports when I was younger, I learned the value of proper nutrition for peak performance. The term “breakfast of champions” suggests that the athlete is starting the day off right, with proper nutrition that will propel him or her through the day at the highest levels of performance.

Did you know that there is a breakfast of champions for Christians, regardless of what athletic prowess they may or may not possess?

The Bible says in Psalm 143:8, “Let me hear in the morning of Your steadfast love, for in You I trust. Make me know the way I should go for to You I lift up my soul.”

Here the psalmist gives us the formula for the biblical breakfast of champions, and it is found in the Gospel of God alone. What a way to start each day, hearing in the morning of the steadfast love of our splendid Savior! The psalmist rises to begin the day – not with excitement about the daily news or stock market reports – but with the joy and comfort of daily experiencing the love of God. The psalmist puts his trust in this Gospel truth. The Bible reiterates this wonderful truth in Hosea 6:3:

Let us acknowledge the Lord;

let us press on to acknowledge Him.

As surely as the sun rises,

He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.

A breakfast buffet of God’s unfailing and unconditional love is the best way for those who are in Christ to start the day! It is like manna from heaven at the start of a new day. It is like fresh dew in the early morning covering the grass. It is like water from the fountain of Living Water that quenches the thirst for the entire day. Scripture tells us that the only way each day will be what God wants it to be is to begin it with God, in the presence of God.

I know from personal experience the difference it makes starting the day with some “alone time” with God. When I’m too rushed, it’s not long before I am running on empty . . . and empty is not a good place to be! The common response from those who rush headlong into the day is, “I really don’t have time.” Well, the truth is, none of us has the time NOT to do it.

When we start the day with God, we start the day with the fuel for excellence. We make better decisions and go in better directions.

Think about it this way:

Is it better to start the day with fresh fruit or frozen toaster pastries?

Starting the day off on the wrong foot has a tendency to keep us heading in the wrong direction. But when we begin the day reflecting on the grace of God, resting in His steadfast love, and responding to His call in our lives, we will have the supernatural energy to live each moment for the glory of God and the good of all others.

How about you? How are you doing in this area? The “breakfast of champions” is the Bread of Life, and He is available to you 24/7. Start each day with the One in whom you trust! And on the days you don’t . . . relax! Jesus will be waiting for you when you return.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey … Rest in this eternal truth … AMEN!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”