Live Delivered

You know the story of Joseph in Egypt and the seven years of feast and seven years of famine he led the Egyptians through.  God revealed to Joseph the meaning of Pharoah’s dream.  Pharoah had dreamed that he saw seven fat and healthy cows who were consumed by seven skinny and weak cows.

Seven years of feast would be consumed by seven years of famine.  The famine would be so great that the people would forget the seven years of feast they had enjoyed before.  We are in some tough times today.  Whether it is a time of feast or a time of famine I don’t know, but I believe soon we will forget many of our blessings because our trials will be so great.

It doesn’t matter if it is feast or famine, it is present throughout all the land.  And we live in the land, so we will not be able to escape it.  But like Joseph, we can be ready to get through it if we listen to God’s way for us.

But what is God’s way and how do we follow it when we are subject to things outside of our control?  In Ephesians 3:20, scripture says, “Now unto Him Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”  Unto Him what?  Scripture says unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus.  

No matter what is going on around us.  No matter what is happening with us.  Things may be outside of our control, but nothing is outside of God’s control especially when we offer Him the glory He is due.  It is difficult for us to glorify God because we want so much for ourselves.  That is the big reason we are living in a time of famine.  We don’t have enough to satisfy the desires we have for ourselves.

Wanting less so we can have more probably makes no sense to many of us.  But this is exactly the way God wants us to live.  The less we want, the less likely we will want to live by our own strength.  The less we want, the more likely we will depend on the Lord to sustain the little we desire.  Learning to glorify God in the good times is one of the ways we move Him to favor us.

God’s ways are different from our ways.  Things are bad now, and they will get tougher for us and our children.  Some people will come after us, and they will not know anything but a famine of desire because the need will be so great.  God does not keep us in the feast, nor does He stop the famine from coming.  He keeps waiting for us to change our desires.

What He does is show us the way to feast in the middle of the famine and to conserve in the middle of the feast.  So here are seven practical ways we can live now that will help us to feast in the middle of the famine we face and to conserve in the feast we enjoy.

Learn to want less than what the people around you want.  When you restrain your desires, you will achieve more of your desires.  Want less and have more.

Learn to want what produces the things others want.  Let people have what is new and unaffordable; you have what is affordable and satisfactory.

Learn to give more of what you have.  People who keep all that they have will ultimately be indebted to those who will want little of what you have.

Learn to be satisfied with what you have.  The glass that God’s gives us is neither half full nor half empty, but it is just right for those who look to Him to provide for their needs.

Learn to save for your family and for others.  When you save for others, others will learn to live for you.

Learn to live so dependent on God that you can put the lives of people who depend on you ahead of your own.  Let the Lord use you to fulfill someone else’s prayers.

Learn that when we consume everything around us, what we feast on will not be a filling.  A famine is only one credit card transaction away when we live by our own means.

When we learn to want less, God will step in and give us more.  So, lets learn to temper what we want.  Whether it is food, shelter, friendship, work, play, love, even health.  When we learn to want less of what the flesh desires, God will help us to have more of what the Spirit can provide.

Now unto Him who can do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we can think or ask, to Him we give the glory of our desires.  Whether feast to famine or famine to feast, we learn to want less so He can give us more.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

These are the words of a song I love.  It is called Yes Amen.  The words “Yes Amen” appear together in only one scripture I can find in the bible.  2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”

I wondered, what are the promises of God to us?  But I didn’t wonder long, for I quickly realized that God Himself is a promise to us.  He is not an object that cannot hear us; He is not an object that cannot speak to us; He is not an object that cannot be heard by us.

I realized it was pointless for me to try to know all His promises toward us.  He is His promise to us.  So instead of searching, we should say Yes to Christ and Amen to all that it means for us—even the things we do not know yet.

There is no one like Him.  That is His promised Truth to us.  And Christ affirms the Truth of this for us by being our Yes and our Amen.  God Himself looked down at His Son and cried out, “Yes Jesus, You did all that I asked!”  And Amen to the fact that all that He asked was done by His Son. 

There is nothing that does not obey Him—even the winds.  Christ affirms this in that death could not hold Him.  Let’s say, “Yes and Amen!”

The universe trembles when it hears His voice.  When Christ speaks, it calms the trembles in our lives.  Let’s say, “Yes and Amen!”

The storms are quieted by Him.  Christ calmed the storms on the seas; He can calm the storms of your life.  Let’s say, “Yes and Amen!”

He lives in us.  He is not a molten calf that sits dormant where we place it.  He is alive, and He lives in us so He can live out our lives with us.  Let’s say, “Yes and Amen!”

There is nothing He cannot do for us because there is nothing He cannot do when it is His desire.

So, instead of trying to figure out what are His promises towards us, we must learn He is His promise to us.  There is no one like Him. His Word never changes.  There is no place in our life that He will not move.  All power is in Him.

We should learn that there is nothing we can imagine that is of Him that He cannot do.  Our response to all this should simply be to say, “Yes and Amen!”  Yes, to Christ being our Savior, and Amen to the fact that He is the gift of all God’s promises towards us.

Stop and ponder today.  There are many things in your life that are waiting for your “Yes, and Amen”.

“Yes, and Amen” to God.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

I am sure you are all aware of the mass killing that happened this week in a Texas school.  I don’t want to make this incident any more important than the many other events and times we have had mass killings across our nation.  We hurt when we remember the first incident, and we hurt now.  It seems we have a sickness that cannot be treated or healed.

So, in the face of what seems like constant hurt and pain that is all around, what can we do for ourselves and for others?  There is no easy answer.  But first, we must understand what is happening in our land.  We are living in a land and in a time with many more nonbelievers than believers.  And we live in a land and in a time where some believers live more by their feelings than by God’s feelings.

There are many who believe there is an answer to every question, a solution to every problem, and a good ending to every bad story.  But I’m not sure that is true.  Sometimes bad things will happen because bad things exist.  And sometimes, bad things will keep good from happening.

So why are we here, and why is the land so sick?  Well, there may be lots of reasons, but I believe we live in a world of wickedness now more than ever.  To be wicked is to do things that are harmful towards others in a very intentional way. To be wicked is to decide on your own moral sense of right and wrong.  To be wicked is to hate others and to even hate yourself.

Psalm 7:9 says, “Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end.  But establish the Just; For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.” We must understand that we have wickedness in the world because we have wicked people among us.  The word wicked sounds really bad.  We are probably very hesitant to refer to anyone as wicked.

The wicked live by their feelings.  They live by their own sense of right and wrong, their own sense of moral and immoral.  They do not accept that there is a higher sense of right and wrong different from what they believe is right for themselves.  They do not care about themselves, so they are unable to care about you or me.

The wicked corrupt the deepest and most vulnerable parts of who we are.  It will make us believe we can have all we want in the way that we want.  It will make us think we do not have to change things about us to make things around us better.  The wicked make us learn to live with wickedness as the norm.  Wickedness will make us unable to care about what we should care about, and it will make us care for what we should reject.

But this is all the work of wickedness.  This work will keep us sick in our souls, so our land will be sick.  But there is something we can all do to stop the wickedness around us.  We must understand that wickedness in people is what destroys other people.

We need to do something about how easily it seems that people can get their hands on a gun.  But we must understand that if we took all the guns away, a wicked person would find another way to do their wicked things.

Guns do not cause a wicked person to do wicked things.  Wickedness in the heart causes a wicked person to do wicked things.  Wickedness is not a mental problem as much as it is simply a heart problem.

So lets join in prayer and ask the Lord to bring the wicked works of the wicked people to an end.  

Let’s ask the Lord to reestablish the Just, the way we lead and the way we follow.

Let’s ask the Lord to test the hearts and minds of us all and reveal any lurking wickedness deep down in our souls.

Let’s ask the Lord to focus the believers on having upright hearts more than judging hearts.  Upright according to His ways, not our own.

It is not enough to just think the opposite from those around us; we must think in just ways for the people around us.

God is Just.  He will heal our land and deliver us from this sickness when we accept that much of our ways are morally right for humans but wrong for Him.

Lord, please heal our land.  And start first with me.

If I have any wickedness towards others lurking in me, please root it out and replace it with Your Love.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Recently, I received an unwanted email from someone who suggested that I qualified to purchase the house of my dreams. I am satisfied with the house we have.   The email said all I needed to do was to apply for a loan that was already guaranteed.  I wasn’t asking for a loan guarantee.  I deleted the email without thought because it was designed to get me to want what I didn’t need.

That email was saying about me – your current house is old – it is dated – it needs upgrades – you can have more and better for less. It was saying to me that at that moment, I had nothing better. I don’t listen to people who put down the things I have.

If we are never satisfied with what we have, we will never have anything better than our next desire. I already had satisfaction. I didn’t need something someone else said was better than what I had.

Paul speaks to this in a way in the book of Philippians.  Philippians 6:11 says, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”  Paul is telling us he knows how to live humbly when he has much, and he knows how to live abundantly when he has little.

Paul was saying he could be hungry, and he could be full at the same time.  How is that so?  Because he was satisfied.  Nothing was better for Paul than what he already had.  Now this was a hard lesson for me to accept.  I used to look at what I had, then I would think about what I didn’t have, and I would think about what I wanted.  I felt like I could not be happy unless I had something better than the thing that made me happy yesterday.

But being happy is a fleeting thing. Happiness is hard to find and harder to keep. The only way to be really happy is to be satisfied. When you are satisfied, nothing you don’t have could ever be better than the things you do have. Learn to desire and to seek after the spirit of satisfaction so you do not run after the quick feet of happiness.

Be satisfied with a good name; it is better than a store house of goods.

Be satisfied in heart with the things that are good and things that are not so good; the heart is made better and stronger when we go through times of sorrow more than when we live only for laughter and happiness.

Hear the people who are smarter than you; listening to wise people is better than dancing to the music of those who misguide us.

Be patient with yourself so you will be patient with others; being patient is better than being proud.

Be gracious towards others; being gracious will teach you to how to control uncontrollable emotions such as anger and anxiety.

And if you find those too hard to accept, remember this. There is nothing better than having the Love of God abiding in your life. His love is better than life itself. So, if you learn to give up your life so that He will claim your life with His love, you will find that there is nothing better in life than the life of the Love of God.

When you have the Love of God in your life, there is nothing better that you could ever want or need. He will take your old life and let you live like it is new every day.

Be encouraged today.  Live as if you have the one thing for which there is nothing any better.

When you have what is best, it makes what you have better than it is, just as it is.

The Lord helps you to be satisfied with what you have when the best that you have is Him.  There is nothing better than that.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

There is a saying.  You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink.  I know only a few things about a horse, but one is that they don’t drink water until they are thirsty for water.  They won’t drink when we think they should drink.  They drink when they are thirsty. You can lead them to water, but you can’t make them drink.

In some ways, Jesus is like that towards us.  And we are like the horse is towards Him.  We need water to sustain our lives, especially when we feel like we are not thirsty.  Scripture tells us this in Psalm 42:1-2, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

To pant for water means to long for the refreshing of the soul that water brings.  It means we have a deep desire for that and nothing else.  The deer knows it needs the refreshing energy that comes with a cool drink of water.  Water prepares the deer to face the challenges of the day in the fulness of all its strength.

If all Jesus ever did for us was to lead us to water, we would all die of thirst.  Why?  Because we will not always drink of the way of life Jesus has planned for us.  Jesus will always lead us to the right place, but He will never force us to do the right things.  We must long to do that. So, what does Jesus do to get us to do what He knows is good for us?

Jesus knows each of us better than we know ourselves.  So, He doesn’t just lead us to where we should be, He is an expert at making us thirsty once we are there.  Yes, He leads us to the water, but then He goes to work to make us thirsty.  Only then will we want to drink.  We must have a thirst for thirst.  We must thirst to have our thirst satisfied by the Father.

Jesus does three things to make us long for Him.  He wants us to say to ourselves, “God you are my God; early in the day I will seek You.  My soul pants for You in the dry land and in the land of plenty where people live as if there is no God.”

When our longing for God is like this, He leads us to where we should be.  Then He makes us thirsty by helping us to see that nothing we have had in the past can compare to what He has in store for us.  We must live to leave our pasts to enjoy our futures.

He makes us thirsty by helping us see that all that we have now must not keep us from all that God promises us even if we do not know it all.  We want the abundant life He promises more than the abundant life we earn for ourselves.

He makes us thirsty by helping us see that a future with much but without Him is not as satisfying as a future with sufficient but with Him.  We long for more of Him and less of the world.

Jesus wants to inspire you more than to command you.  But you must allow yourself to be inspired to thirst for the things He wants to give you. Let your soul follow close after Him.  He is your help when you do not know you need help.

He longs to lead you to the water so He can inspire you to thirst.  He is your portion.  Be inspired to thirst for what He alone can provide you.  Then you will find the refreshing of His life hitting the bottom of your life.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Mother’s Day is a day many people from many nations set aside time to honor mothers and women in general for the roles they play in our lives.  Indeed, mothers are special, and we should honor and cherish them for all they are.

I hope most of you will do something special to celebrate and honor the women in your lives today.  I believe the mothers among us deserve more than what we will give them today so whatever you do, be extravagant in that.

When Jesus He was on the cross dying, he looked down at the people below Him and saw His mother and John his disciple.  Seeing them, He said to His mother, woman behold your son!  And He said to John, behold your mother.

It is said that from that hour that John took Jesus’ mother into his own home.   So, the last thing Jesus did before his death was to make sure His mother would not be left on her own to care for herself.  His mother became mother to John and John became a son to her.

Now, we don’t know if Jesus had any living brothers or sisters still at this time who could have cared for His mother.  But that doesn’t matter.  He made sure she would have a son to care for her for the remainder of their lives.

Let’s look to Jesus’s example for how we ought to view Mother’s Day.  Jesus didn’t just do something for the day.  He didn’t just His give mom flowers and a meal.  He gave her a life as a son that He had given her all His life.

He gave her more of what He gave her each day of their lives; He gave her His love.

He showed her more of what He showed her all their lives; He cared for Her wellbeing.

He did for her what He probably did all their lives; He honored and cherished her.

Jesus’s examples to us are always good for us.  Let’s take this example of His Mother’s Day and do what He did.  Let’s make sure we don’t simply celebrate the day one way and live the year differently.

Love your mothers; provide for their well-being and honor and cherish them all the days of your life.

Behold your mother this Mother’s Day.

Love you.

There is a well-known poem called “Footprints in the Sand.”  It’s a poem about the life of a man who dreams he is walking along the beach with Jesus.  And as they walk, the man notices two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to the Lord and the other belonging to him.

After he dies and goes to heaven, the man looks back at his life.  During his lowest and most difficult times he noticed there was only one set of footprints in the sand.  He asks the Lord why it was when he needed Jesus the most, there was only one set of footprints?  The Lord responded that it was at those lowest and most difficult times that He was carrying the man through on His shoulders.

Sometimes, we don’t get the change we want because it is not the change Jesus is trying to give us.  We see this in many instances throughout scripture.  We want one thing, but Jesus has other plans.  In Luke 22:42, on the night Jesus was betrayed, He prayed to God, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done.” 

Jesus had His mind on Himself and on His circumstances, but He had His heart set on God.

Then in 1 Corinthians 12:7, Paul tells us he asked Jesus to remove an infirmity from him.  Paul tells us how Jesus responded to his request.  “Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.  And He said to me, My Grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weaknesses.”

At first, Paul had heart set on himself, and his mind was on his infirmity.

Both Jesus and Paul wanted something about their situation to change.  But notice the difference in how the two approached God.  Jesus acknowledged that God’s Will for His life extended to everything about His life.  Jesus wanted God’s will even if it was different from His own.

Paul didn’t acknowledge God’s will over his life.  Paul wanted his circumstances to be changed.  He wanted that to be God’s will for him.  Like Jesus, Paul learned that God doesn’t change our circumstances because we find them difficult.  He changes our hearts and our minds to recognize the power of His Grace at work in our lives.

I know some of you reading this may have something very troubling you are going through, some of you have been going through this difficult thing for a very long time.  You can’t see how you can make it another day.  You want the Lord to change your circumstances.  And even after all your prayers—and the prayers of many others on your behalf—it seems like He is not listening because things are not changing for you.

I know that the Lord knows your hurt and your pain and your confusion and even your disappointment.  I’ve gone through that myself.  In fact, I lived there until I learned that God often had plans that differed from the plans I had for my life.  I wanted to get out of the bondage of Egypt, but I didn’t want to go through the Red Sea or travel in the desert.

So, this is what I came to know.  I learned that making things the way I wanted wasn’t always better for me.  But Grace always leads us to choose a better way to move than the way we want.

I learned getting out of something wasn’t always what was needed.  Getting through something was better.  Grace will always help you get through what you want to get out of.

I learned that living with my greatest struggles, my lowest moments, and in my greatest fears were the times I wanted to be free.  Grace will always help us get through the things that challenge us most because it is the strength of God coming to life in our weakest moments.

I am not at the point where I claim to be happy to be in trials.  In fact, I hope I’m never happy with that.  But I believe we should be at the point where we know that Jesus carries us through our greatest trials. 

When we feel we are at the end and alone by ourselves, Jesus asks to us to look around.  When we find His Grace, we find that He did not change the circumstances of our lives because He was hard at work carrying us through our circumstances so we can have changed lives like we never imagined.

When we learn to want the change that Jesus wants for us, we will learn to look for Him to take us through our challenges rather than look for Him to change what is before us.

When you learn to live in Grace, you will learn to live in the power of God’s favor in your darkest and most pressing moments.  Grace makes you say for real, “Not my will by Thy will be done O Lord.”  Grace gives you the power to give the Lord the change that He wants to make in your life.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love You.

I’m sure most of you have heard the saying “I know just enough to be dangerous.”  What does this really mean?  Well, perhaps it means we know some things, but we don’t know enough to be experts at a particular thing.  We know that we still have some learning ahead of us.  So, it would be wise of us to work with what we know until we learn what we do not know.

It’s a wise thing for us to have the discipline to live and work with what we know and to refrain from trying live by what we do not know.  Our knowledge of what is good and best for us is probably never good enough or best enough to keep us safe from ourselves.  Our knowledge must be tempered by something greater than us—the wisdom of God.

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is talking with the people of Israel while they are still in the desert.  He reminds them of the times they were disobedient to the things God told them to do and things He asked them not to do.  He explains that because they disobeyed, none of them would be able to enter the Promised Land.

Moses goes on to say, only their little ones, those who did not yet have any knowledge of good or evil, only those would be able to enter the Promised Land.  The little ones didn’t have the sense to be disobedient to the things of God.  They knew just enough to be safe because they knew enough to know that they should obey their fathers who would care for them.

In Genesis 2:16-17, God tells Adam, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  In many ways this is a difficult scripture passage to know.  But let’s not make it difficult.

We do not have to know more than what God is saying, to know what God is saying.  He told Adam don’t eat from this tree; if you do, you will die.  Most of us know that Eve came along a bit later and was tricked to eat from the tree, and she had Adam to do the same.  They disobeyed God.

God gave them just enough knowledge to live safely forever.    They knew enough to be safe, but they learned enough to be dangerous.  Just like those little children in the desert, God cries out to us to be mindful of trying to figure out everything about life.  Just as satan tricked Eve into thinking she and Adam could handle knowing more about life than they knew, satan tries to trick us today into believing we know more about what we do not know.

We do not have to have answers to all the things that will become questions in our lives.  Does knowing that make you feel like you are missing something?  It should not.  That is what caused Eve to fall.  A child does not know good from evil, yet we provide for their security and for their welfare.

Just like little children, God wants us to know that He will provide for our safety and welfare when we learn to know enough to be obedient.  Where did the earth come from?  I don’t know, and I don’t care; God created it.  Why does the sun hang out in the sky and never gets too close to the earth?  I don’t know, and I don’t care; God keeps it in its place.  How do the oceans know how far to come ashore?  I don’t know, and I don’t care; God orders the movement of the oceans.

Let’s not be a people who know just enough to be dangerous with what we do not know.  Instead, let’s become disciplined and good at knowing the things that God has allowed us to know.  Long life and prosperity will come to us when we learn, live, and obey as if we are little children who know no good or evil.

Ask the Lord to help you learn just enough to be safe with what you know.  Then you will live a fruitful life in the Promised Land here that God has reserved for those of us who know Him and who live obediently and in satisfaction with what He reveals to us.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Psalms is the longest book in the Bible.  The Book of Psalms has been known as a Book of Praises because almost every psalm contains some expression of Praise to God.

Psalms 150:6, the last verse in the entire Book of Psalms encourages us by saying, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”  As we acknowledge the day we refer to as Easter for 2022, I encourage you, please don’t hold your breath.

God breathed the breath of life into Adam.  And since Adam, every living thing has that same breath of life.  You cannot live without having the life-giving breath of life in you.  The Book of Psalms is simply reminding us that we should make it an intentional act to use our breath to Praise the Lord.

The day we call Easter today was in Jesus’s time a special day of praise.  The day was so important that it is described in each of the Gospel Books of the bible—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  The account in the book of Luke tells us that a week before He would be crucified, Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey.  His disciples were with Him.

And a great multitude of people who had been following Him were also with Him.  Luke 19:37 says, “Then, as He was drawing near to the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice.”

Something that was so good was happening right before their eyes.  It was so good that they could not contain themselves.  So, on this Easter let me encourage you.  Don’t hold your breath!  The same good things that happened before are still happening for us today, and more so!

The breath of life can give life to dead bones; it will give life to the dead things around you.  So instead of finding the breath to utter complaints about how your life is going, use every breath of your life to praise the Lord.  You have much more to be grateful for than to complain about.  Don’t hold your breath.

Instead of finding the breath to find fault in others, use every breath of your life to praise the Lord for how He covers the faults we have in ourselves.  Don’t hold your breath.

Instead of finding the breath to criticize others for what they do, use every breath of your life to praise the Lord for keeping you from doing some of the very things you criticize others for doing.  Don’t hold your breath.

Instead of finding the breath to speak lowly about the unsaved, use every breath of your life to praise the Lord for keeping you from being an unsaved person.  Don’t hold your breath.

And instead of finding the breath to be silent about who the Lord is, use every breath of your life to praise the Lord for all the things He does to sustain the life you live here on earth.  Don’t hold your breath.

I don’t know that God gave us the breath of life just so we could praise Him, but I believe every breath we take should be taken for Him.  God breathed into us the breath of life.  Jesus died for us so we could have eternal life.  So then, we should breathe His breath into the world.

Let everyone who has breath in them praise the Lord.  Don’t hold your breath.  When you breathe but you are silent, someone else will offer the praise you should have offered.  Don’t let your silence awaken the noise of praise that will come from others who cry out to the Lord.  Praise the Lord!

Let this Easter be the time you start praising the Lord because you have breath that won’t let you be silent any longer.  Let everything that has breath Praise the Lord!

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Scripture tells us that on the third day after Jesus had been buried, God raised Him from the dead.  Jesus showed Himself to His disciples that same day—well, to all but Thomas who was not with them at the time Jesus came.  But the other disciples told Thomas they had seen the Lord.

John 20:25 says that Thomas responded, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and I put my finger into the print of the nails, and I put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”  His response is interesting.

So, what was Thomas saying?  Was he saying, “I will not believe what you are telling me?”  Or was he saying, “I will not believe that the Lord is risen?”  I don’t know what he was thinking myself, but this much I do know.  Thomas was saying he needed evidence that he could see before he would allow himself to believe what he didn’t see for himself.

Later in this same area of scripture, Jesus again came to the disciples, and this time Thomas is with them.  Jesus invited Thomas to touch Him and His wounds, and after that Thomas was ready to believe.  But Jesus told him, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Many of us are like Thomas but more of us should be like the other disciples.  Thomas had to have proof before he believed; the disciples needed not proof to believe the facts about Jesus that they knew were true whether they believed or not.

The disciples had both the work of belief and the work of faith thriving in their lives.  Thomas had the presence of doubt at work in his life.  Like the disciples, some of us believe the facts without question so our faith helps us to see what the facts say.  Then like Thomas, some of us cannot believe the facts or have faith about God until we have our doubts disproved.

God wants us to know how belief and faith work together.  They may seem like they are the same thing and in some ways they are.  But with our belief, we confirm to ourselves what is the Truth about God; we tell our doubts we will believe the facts as they are.  And with our faith, we can live in ways that are pleasing to God, ways that He is pleased to reward.

Our faith tells our belief you can believe the Truth even if you cannot see it. We need both belief and faith to live the life God wants us to live.  Many of us live trying to disprove our doubts by working ourselves up to believe what we cannot verify.  And many of us fail to live lives that are rewarded to their fullest by God because our faith is only in the experience we get when we put our hands into Jesus side.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”  So today ask yourself to believe all that the Word says He is and have faith that is assured enough to say I don’t have to see it to believe it.

Learn to believe in the Truth about God and to have faith in what the Truth says He will do for you.  When you have both belief and faith working for you, God promises to reward you richly.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.