Thursday, February 20, 2025

Learning to Trust

 By: Grace Metzger 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
 And lean not on your own understanding.
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

My coworker and I like to joke about how I’m such a distrustful person. At my job it’s very easy to get in trouble or even fired from a single mistake. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times in the past so I’ve become extremely cautious over everything I do.  However this joke started getting to my head, have I really become so independent that I don’t trust anyone? Has this happened in my relationship with God?



Whenever I am afraid,
 I will trust in You.
Psalms‬ ‭56‬:‭3‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I’ve thought about my current situation, the troubles I’m experiencing in my life right now. Was I trusting God through this? Was I believing that He had control over it? Sadly, I don’t think I can confidently say that I had total trust in God. Instead, I was allowing my anxiety to control my thoughts. 

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication,
 with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

As I was thinking about this, I thought about this verse in Philippians. I remember learning this verse as a child and repeating it over and over again whenever my anxiety rose. I love this verse so much because shows that God understands us. He knows that we have a habit of allowing anxiety to control us so He used His word to give us instructions on how to trust Him. 

We need to give it to Him in prayer. When we pray, we are relinquishing control and fears over our problems and giving them to God. I’ve noticed a change when I pray over the storms in my life and stop thinking about it. When fear tries to take control I remind myself I already gave it to God. It’s no longer mine to fear, if it’s not my problem then why do I worry over it? 


Discussion Questions: What helps you when you're lacking in trust and faith?



Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Our Call to Follow Him

 By: Rebekah Hargraves


Photo Courtesy of: Gil Ribeiro



“If I want him to remain until I come,” Jesus answered, “what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”

~John 21:22



Our pastor made an excellent point when covering this passage one Wednesday night years ago. He showed that, truly, this passage is a most relevant and applicable one in our day in age of comparison, competition, and discontentment - especially online.


In this verse, Jesus is speaking to Peter, answering Peter’s concern over God’s plan for John’s life compared to His plan for Peter's own life. Peter is comparing, He’s competing, and he isn’t willing to just rest in whatever God’s plan for him might be. He isn’t willing to just tend the area God have *him*. He’s busy getting his nose into what God’s plan is for John, wanting to have his calling be what John’s calling is, and perhaps feeling upset that his life isn’t looking like John’s.


Jesus answers him, “What is that to you? As for you, follow Me.”



Boy, what a word for us today!



How often do we look at someone else’s life calling, their platform size, their family size, their marriage, their job or ministry, their book contract, their house size, etc., and instantly begin grumbling over why their life is “better” than ours? Why is God blessing her more than me? Why does she have a more exciting life than I do? Why is she getting what I have been wanting for years?



Friends, we have to stop this (preaching just as much to my own heart over here!). We have to begin to know the character of God so well and thereby love and trust Him so much that we are no longer concerned with how someone else’s life is shaping up, but instead are only focused on the blessings and callings God has given to us in our own lives, knowing that the story of our lives as they are right now are part of God’s big-picture plan and are what is best for us in the end. Focus on following Him, faithfully tend your God-given space, and let the comparison go. Because if you don’t, just imagine the goodness right here and right now that you will be missing out on.



Reflection Questions:

1) How have I been grumbling about God's call for my life?

2) Who have I been comparing myself to and coveting the lifestyle of?

3) What do I need to repent of? 

Friday, February 14, 2025

When You Don't Have the Words to Pray

 By: Lauren Thomas

Have you ever felt so broken, so anguished, so hurt, that the only prayer you can offer is a meager groan? Me too. Have you ever been unsure of what exactly to pray? Not known what outcome to pray for or how to pray to that end? Me too.



Thank God that that’s all it takes sometimes. In Romans 8, Paul writes this encouragement: that even when we don’t know how to pray, even when we have no words to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.

 

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27 ESV

 

The Greek word that has been translated Holy Spirit involves these definitions: helper, advocate, comforter, one who is summoned to come alongside. These are just some of the roles of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus in John 14:26.

 

Do you feel weak sometimes? Take heart! Summon the Spirit of God to help you.

 

Do you feel broken sometimes? Look up! Summon the Spirit of God to comfort you.

 

Do you feel discouraged? Lift up a shout! Summon the advocate to fight for you.

 

The Holy Spirit is interceding on your behalf. To intercede means to pray on behalf of another, often as a go-between. In Hebrews 7:25, we also see intercession on our behalf: Jesus “always lives to make intercession for us.” You are never praying alone. And the one praying with you is working with Jesus and the Father to bring about God’s will for you.

 

In Romans 8, Paul goes on to say that what we are going through, and the intercession offered by the Spirit on our behalf, has this ultimate, end-result: God’s best for us, our good, and eventually, glory.

 

Reflection:

When was the last time you considered the role of the Holy Spirit in your prayer? Next time you pray, ask the Spirit to come alongside you. Recognize his role as comforter, helper, and advocate. How might this change how you pray?




Thursday, February 13, 2025

Love Over Anger

 By: Grace Metzger

bless those who curse you, and pray
for those who spitefully use you.
Luke‬ ‭6‬:‭28‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

At my job I have to deal with a lot of angry and hostile people at times. It isn’t fun and can sometimes I find it hard to control my temper when dealing with them. It would be easy to treat them how they treat me or my employees, but should that be how I handle them? 

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those
 who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for
 those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭44‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

God has made it quite clear on how we should treat our enemies. I don’t think God telling us to love each other is a new concept to most, but that doesn’t mean that it comes easy to everyone. So how do we find love for those who treat us poorly? We know we should, but how can we when it’s hard?

 Beloved, if God so loved us,
 we also ought to love one another.
I John‬ ‭4‬:‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I have found that keeping 1 John 4:11 close to my heart has helped me find kindness and love for others. It reminds me of how awful I’ve treated God at times but how He continues to love me. Meditating on this verses helps me remember that everyone gets mad, annoying, or rude. Even I do! How can I be angry when people are reacting just I like I have in the past?

I challenge you this week to find a verse that reminds you to love others. Meditate on this verse and keep it close to your heart. It can be 1 John 4:11 or it could be another one. Just find a verse and keep it with you, use it when you feel your frustration with others raise.

Discussion question!

What verse about love first comes to mind?



Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Our Call to Bear Fruit

 By: Rebekah Hargraves 



Photo Courtesy of: Delia Giandeini




Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” And His disciples heard it. So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”….And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.” So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.”   
 —Mark 11:12-17, 21-22


The good news of the gospel is woven throughout much of what I write on my blog and in my books, as well as what I discuss on my podcast. I regularly seek to show women how Paul’s words in Romans 7 and 8 are the antidote for guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. I quote Psalm 103 often, reminding readers that the Lord “knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (verse 14). He knows we still have a sin nature we will have to fight against, and He knows that we will sometimes succumb to those temptations. Even so, Paul reminds us in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” All of this is right and true, good to remember, and freeing to the soul.


All of those beautiful truths, however, are also just a portion of the whole story and picture of the Christian life. It isn’t enough for us to simply delight in and relish God’s amazing grace toward us in His having freed us from condemnation and guilt. We were never meant to simply remain in that place of only being thankful for the gospel. We were always intended to then walk out the implications of the gospel. We were designed to be sanctified more and more into the image of Christ. 


The Christian life begins with our experiencing immense gratitude for God’s amazing grace, and then continues on into a life of increased obedience as a result of our gratitude.


This is not about legalism, mind you. Obedience and legalism are not the same thing. Legalism is an adherence to man-made rules, an embracing of not just true commands actually found in Scripture but also additional parameters added onto them by man. Legalism is about striving to be perfect in an effort to be approved of and accepted by God.


Obedience, on the other hand, stems from a freedom, a love, and a gratitude that come from knowing you are already approved of and accepted by God as a result of the blood of Christ that covers you and the righteousness of Christ which is now your own. When you realize the depths of what God has done for you through Christ, that love and gratitude you feel is what then inspires your heart to want to live a life of obedience through the production of good fruit.


Jesus was so infuriated with a fig tree with no fig
s because of how it actually serves as a symbol of people who claim to follow God but bear no good fruit that is in keeping with repentance (see Matthew 3:8). This is likewise what angered Him in the temple. 


Here was the temple of God—a place of prayer and communing with the Father—being turned into a place of business. It wasn’t that Jesus was against people earning money. It was that the way and method in which they were doing so was completely inappropriate. Not only were these people extortioners, charging folks for the animals they would need for sacrifice in the temple, but their doing so also kept the poor and destitute out on the fringe. The poor were financially and physically ostracized and marginalized in the temple as a result of these moneychangers and their booths. Jesus, ever one with a heart for the poor and the destitute, the downtrodden and the mistreated, was rightfully angered against these extortioners. Their actions were not at all representative of people who professed to follow God.


In keeping with what Jesus did to the fig tree and how He feels about us producing good fruit in our lives, John 15 is another most important passage to consider. In verses 1-8 Jesus says,

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

This is Christ’s desire for us as His followers: that we would bear much fruit—fruit that is good for us and those around us—and brings glory to His name.



Reflection Questions:


1) If you were to do a self-assessment, how would you say you are doing in the bearing-fruit department?


2) What does it mean to bear good fruit?


3) How can you more faithfully bear good fruit in the future?