Tag Archive | waiting on God

Acts 1 – Wait for the promise

Sep7

Good morning y’all.  Welcome back from our break 🙂 . Today we begin our study on the book of Acts. We will be studying Acts 1 – 5 this week.

I’m blogging through the bible a chapter a day with Good morning girls. You can check us out at www.goodmorninggirls.org.

Courtney from GMG has done an intro into the book of Acts and our study for this week. Click here to read the intro.

Back to our study for today 🙂

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Verse 4 caught my attention.  Especially the phrase “wait for the promise”.

“And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said,“you have heard from Me;” (NKJV)

Most times there is usually a waiting period from the time God gives a promise, to the time the promise is fulfilled. Some of us are impatient, we want instant results (***covering my eyes**** I’m one of them).  Sometimes God answers instantly and other times He wants to teach us patience.  Abraham waited 25yrs for the promise to be fulfilled. Scripture says he hoped against hope. Physically it was impossible for Abraham and Sarah to have a child but Abraham still believed and had faith in the One who promised. He knew God was faithful to bring to pass that which He has said.

God is not a man that He should lie, if He has said it, then He surely will do it (Num 23:19).
Habakkuk 2:3 says:
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry” (NKJV).

The disciples were told to wait for the promise and wait they did. God didn’t let them down, He came through on His promise as we will see in chapter 2 tomorrow.

What has God promised you? Friends hold onto it, even if it feels highly impossible to you. With man it might be impossible, but with God all things are possible (Luke 1:37).  Psalm 27:14 says:
“Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!” (NKJV)

When God gives a promise, it’s not in our place to question when the promise will be fulfilled.  Ours is to believe it will surely be fulfilled at the right time. The disciples in verse 6 asked Jesus about the timing of the prophecy. Jesus responds to them in verse 7 by saying, it’s not their business to know the timing – that’s God’s business!!!.

“6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority”. (NKJV)

The key thing is to make sure we believe the prophecy and do what God asks us to do while waiting for the fulfillment of the promise.

What they needed to concern themselves with, was doing God’s business and for that they needed empowerment which came in the form of the Holy Spirit. Part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to empower us be witnesses for Jesus to the world around us. Of our own might, we won’t be able to do this. Verse 8 says:

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me[a] in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (NKJV)

The disciples had a decision to make regards replacing Judas. They didn’t take it lightly but consulted God before making the decision.

” And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles” (24 -26 NKJV).

They included God in their plan. Are we including God in our plans no matter how trivial the plan maybe? Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to trust in the Lord and lean not on our own understanding, in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths. The disciples chose not to lean on their understanding, so they prayed and asked God to help them choose. After praying they put their faith into action – they applied their faith.  It’s definitely good to pray but we also have to get up and act on our faith. James 2:20 tells us faith without works is dead.

Prayer:
Dear Lord we thank you for today and for the opportunity to learn at your feet. We ask for the grace to wait patiently on you and not loose hope. Give us the grace to be obedient, doing what you have asked of us while we wait for the promise to be fulfilled. Help us to trust you more Lord and we ask for a fresh release of your spirit over our lives. Thank you Lord. In Jesus Name we prayed. Amen.

Thanks for joining today. Tomorrow we will be studying chapter 2. Pls feel free to share your thots on the chapter

Have a blessed day 🙂

***With God all things are possible***

Matthew 6 – Trusting God in the midst of the storm

Mar9

Hello y’all. Good Evening :). Today we are looking at Matthew 6.

I am going to focus the blog on verses 25 – 34

Be blessed 🙂

Matthew 6: 25- 34 TLB:
25 “So my counsel is: Don’t worry about things—food, drink, and clothes. For you already have life and a body—and they are far more important than what to eat and wear. 26 Look at the birds! They don’t worry about what to eat—they don’t need to sow or reap or store up food—for your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. 27 Will all your worries add a single moment to your life?
28 “And why worry about your clothes? Look at the field lilies! They don’t worry about theirs. 29 Yet King Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as beautifully as they. 30 And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you, O men of little faith?
31-32 “So don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing. Why be like the heathen? For they take pride in all these things and are deeply concerned about them. But your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, 33 and he will give them to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to.
34 “So don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time.[b]

Matthew 6: 25 – 34 CEV:
25 I tell you not to worry about your life. Don’t worry about having something to eat, drink, or wear. Isn’t life more than food or clothing? 26 Look at the birds in the sky! They don’t plant or harvest. They don’t even store grain in barns. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. Aren’t you worth more than birds?
27 Can worry make you live longer? Why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow. They don’t work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn’t as well clothed as one of them. God gives such beauty to everything that grows in the fields, even though it is here today and thrown into a firetomorrow. He will surely do even more for you! Why do you have such little faith?
31 Don’t worry and ask yourselves, “Will we have anything to eat? Will we have anything to drink? Will we have any clothes to wear?” Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need all of these. But more than anything else, put God’s work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well.
34 Don’t worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today.

These verses talk about worry. This is something I’m sure we all struggle with. At least I know I struggle with it daily and currently facing a challenge that’s threatening to drown me. In as much as I would love to say I don’t worry about the situation, the truth is I do. Even though I know my worrying won’t change the situation, it’s a daily struggle to constantly remind myself not to worry, but rather hand over the challenge to God

It’s easy to do this when everything is going okay but when you are in the midst of a storm that’s threatening to drown you, all of a sudden you realize that not worrying is not as easy as it seems. The bible is right though, even if you worry about the situation from today to tomorrow, it won’t change the situation. Yet our human mind tells us we have to worry about it. I guess it’s that prideful nature in us that wants to be independent and be able to fix all things, yet God is saying, ‘I don’t need you to fix anything, you just trust Me and let Me fix it for you’.

‘Worrying’ is basically us telling God that He is not able to fix our issues; or He is not in control. That in itself is an insult to God and shows that we don’t truly know HIM. Verse 32 in the CEV version says “Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need all of these”. These makes me ask myself: does that mean I don’t know God when I worry about my problems?
Well according to verse 32 that’s the case. God knows what we need even before we ask and He cares for us more than we can imagine. He already knew about the issues that we are worrying about. They didn’t come as a surprise to Him. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is our Heavenly Father and He loves us with an everlasting unconditional love.

Verse 33 tells us what we should be doing instead of worrying. It tells us to put God’s work first and do what he wants; to give him first place in our lives and live as he wants us to. Then all the things we worry about will be fixed by God. In a nutshell we should focus our attention on God’s business and He in turn will fix ours.

Lately, one of the things I have found effective against ‘worry’ is to focus on God’s greatness and power through praise and worship. I find that when I praise and worship God for who He is and call Him all His many wonderful names, the problem suddenly looks smaller in the light of God’s greatness. God fills me with His peace and gives the strength to carry on, knowing that He is able. But the moment I take my eyes off of God, then I loose sight of His greatness and majesty which then makes my problems and challenges seem bigger than God.

I will leave us with a few verses that I have found encouraging through my current challenge. Hopefully they can encourage someone today :).

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes”. (Matt 6: 34 MSG)

“Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you” (1 Peter 5:7 TLB)

“Yes, ask anything, using my name, and I will do it!” (John 14:14 TLB)

“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life”. (Philippians 4: 6-7 MSG)

“What can we say about all this? If God is on our side, can anyone be against us? God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. If God did this, won’t he freely give us everything else?” (Romans 8: 31-32 CEV)

“Encourage those who are afraid. Tell them, “Be strong, fear not, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you.” (Isaiah 35: 4 TLB)

“When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up—the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, your Savior, the Holy One of Israel. I gave Egypt and Ethiopia and Seba to Cyrus[a] in exchange for your freedom, as your ransom”. (Isaiah 43: 2-3 TLB)

“Fear not, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed. I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will uphold you with my victorious right hand” (Isaiah 41: 10 TLB)

“I am holding you by your right hand—I, the Lord your God—and I say to you, Don’t be afraid; I am here to help you”. (Isaiah 41: 13 TLB)

Prayer:
Dear Lord, we thank You for today. We thank You for your love towards us. We ask for Your forgiveness for all the times we have doubted You and worried about our problems. We ask for the grace to truly trust You and believe in Your ability to meet our needs; no matter how small or big they may seem. Thank you Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen

Thanks for joining today.

Have a blessed evening 🙂

***With God all things are possible***