If you think about it, God’s call on Abraham’s life was a pretty scary thing. I mean, Abraham was no spring chicken when God spoke to him about leaving! He was 75 years old!

When was the last time you heard about a 75-year-old man packing up his family and moving away somewhere? Nevertheless, notice what Abraham’s response was! He went out … not knowing where he was headed. All he knew was that he was being obedient. This is what the Bible calls faith.

I have a friend who loves maps. And he loves to use maps to plan every mile of every trip his family ever takes. But you know, when God called Abraham, He didn’t give him a map with a carefully planned-out route. God just said, “Get going and I’ll lead you.” This is where a lot of Christians get hung up. Because heading out with only a directive — and not a destination — requires us to give up control. It requires us to be vulnerable. And these aren’t things many of us relish!

But look at Abraham. He obeyed God when God called him. And so should you and I!

Let me ask you today, is God calling you to do something… but you haven’t obeyed Him? Maybe it’s walking next door to your neighbors’ house to begin a friendship… with the goal being to share Christ with them. Maybe it’s helping out a ministry at your church. Or maybe God is calling you to move your family to another country to serve Him.

Whatever it is, when you know that God is calling you to do something, you need to start moving! Waiting on more direction or detail may prove to be an exercise in futility, as well as a lack of faith. There is no way to steer a parked car, yet many of God’s children seem to insist on staying parked until they know exactly where they are going and how long it will take to get there.

Today, I want to challenge you to follow in the footprints of Abraham’s obedient faith by stepping out and doing what God has called you to do. To be truly used of God, you need to learn to obey His leading… even if you don’t understand or can’t see the outcome!                      (BAYLESS CONLEY)

A popular message is influencing many Christians today. It’s often called the prosperity gospel, because it claims to give believers good news: If they just have enough faith, they can get the kind of lives they want from God, including good health and significant wealth.

Here’s how you can avoid the prosperity gospel’s dangerous message and follow Christ’s Gospel instead:

Seek God Himself rather than His blessings. Yes, God loves you and wants to bless you, but He’ll do so in His own ways, according to His will – not yours. Contrary to what the prosperity gospel claims, God hasn’t promised to bless all people with good health and plenty of wealth if they ask Him for it in faith. Instead, God has promised something better: His presence. You can count on the fact that God will be with you, no matter what. But trying to manipulate God into giving you want you want simply won’t work. When you focus on the blessings you want God to give you more than you focus on God Himself, the blessings you’re hoping for become idols in your life, drawing your attention away from God and toward your own desires. Never place your trust or sense of security in anything or anyone other than God Himself, because only God has the power to ultimately fulfil you.

Recognize the limits of your own power. In reality you don’t have the power to create whatever you want through mental and spiritual effort. The Bible and history are full of examples of people who had great faith, yet still endured sickness and poverty. God didn’t choose to spare those people from suffering, despite His love for them. If you think you can change your own circumstances simply by declaring in faith that you want different circumstances, you’re exalting yourself to a godlike level that is inaccurate and spiritually dangerous because it causes you to trust in yourself more than in God.

Understand the value of suffering. Since God accomplishes good purposes through suffering, it has value and you shouldn’t try to avoid it at all costs. Even Jesus chose to suffer during His life on Earth, so it’s reasonable to expect that the Christian life’s main goal – becoming more like Jesus – will involve some suffering. In fact, Jesus says that you should expect trouble in this world. But when you trust God as you go through suffering, you can also expect to learn valuable lessons and emerge from it as a better person.

Consider why you want to be saved. The prosperity gospel is simply a self-help philosophy designed to try to save you from undesirable circumstances. But the real Gospel declares that through a relationship with Jesus, you can be saved from sin and experience eternal life. Jesus died for your sins, not so that you can become prosperous, but so that you can die to selfish and destructive sin and live in a right relationship with God.                                                                                  (WHITNEY HOPLER)

Imagine the days when rainbows first appeared.  Picture Noah’s wife and family, as they gazed at the great expanse of the sky.  Did they feel as though they were looking into the face of God? How assuring it must have been for Noah’s family to know that God remembered them, cared enough to give them a second chance. When our joy is overshadowed by storms and clouds, it is time to look for rainbows.  God put incredible forethought into this glorious phenomenon, His gift to us.

Miracle of the Rainbow: A rainbow is made up of seven colors of light and appears only during or immediately after a rain shower. The number seven biblically symbolizes completeness and perfection.  His promises are complete, and perfect!  The light of the sun shines through the rain, causing the light to bend and reflect off the rain.  The light of the Son shines through the darkness in our lives, and others can see the Light in us.

Endless Love: Rainbows are circles and can only be viewed as such from above the earth, such as in an airplane.  A circle represents infinity or eternity.  God desires us to know that His love is forever.  We are actually cradled in the center of the rainbow–surrounded by His love!  It is a love that never ends.  The glorious rainbow on the horizon is our assurance of God’s all-encompassing, unconditional love.

After Our Storms: A rainbow is a glorious sight to the weary Christian. It is a sure sign that we are not alone, that God knows our hearts and our pain, and that new joy and promises to be fulfilled will come to pass.

A Symbol of Grace and Second Chances: The rainbow reminds us that God’s utmost plan for us is our salvation, not our destruction.  That beautiful rainbow in the sky promises us a relationship with God.  It is a promise of restoration, not separation.  God makes covenants with people because He chooses to be in a relationship with us.  He wants to be in a relationship with us!  He gives us opportunities to turn around.  He gives us second chances because He loves us.

The Pot Of Gold: In our hectic and often anxious lives, we forget God’s promises.  As we see the rainbow in the sky, do we really believe that God is with us through every circumstance?  Do we look at the rainbow as Noah did, and see the face of our Father?

God promises that He will be with us throughout eternity. He promises riches in heaven to all who believe and follow Him.  The “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow, is His Word, which promises salvation if we put our lives in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  What’s at the end of your rainbow?  Hopefully, it’s heaven.                                          (S. A. COOKE)

We like to think of God as some kind of Father Christmas character in the sky. We like to hear about His love and mercy, but the idea of a God who hates sin and will judge us for doing wrong is not very popular. We reverse things — instead of seeing ourselves in God’s image, we prefer to create God in our image.  We read verses that tell us “God is love” and apply our own definition of love.  We come up with a God who doesn’t judge sin, who doesn’t care all that much what we do as long as we don’t hurt anybody and don’t do anything too bad. We invent a God who wants a relationship with us on our terms.  This is not the God of Exodus 34. The God of Exodus 34 hates sin.

We may wonder, how can a God who is love hate anything? The answer is that because God is love, therefore He must hate. If you love life, you must hate murder, for murder destroys life. So also God must hate evil because He loves good, and evil destroys good. And God must punish sin. If God allowed evil to go unpunished, He would not be holy. Sin is the very contradiction of His nature.

God owes us nothing. He made us, and we rebelled against Him. If He were to send us all to an eternity in hell, nobody could accuse Him of injustice.

But God is also merciful. Proverbs 16:6 tells us that iniquity is purged by “mercy and truth”. Mercy without justice is not truth. Mercy without justice is to tell the lie that sin doesn’t matter. Only when there is truth as well as mercy can we be cleansed from our sin.

God’s justice demands that sin be punished. God’s mercy allows a substitute to take our place, to pay the penalty we deserved. And God’s love provided His Son as our Substitute. When Christ died on the cross, a legal transaction took place where He took our sins and gave us His righteousness. The Son of God bore the wrath of the Father’s justice in our place. Because of His work on the cross, His righteousness is placed on our account. When God looks at us, He sees, not our sin, but the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Mercy and justice.
It all comes together at a hill called Calvary.

You’ve heard of cheap grace. But have you heard of cheap worship? “Cheap grace,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “is grace without discipleship,” grace without cost, without taking up our cross. In Bonhoeffer’s own life, the cost of discipleship was very high. He was executed by the Nazis just before the end of World War II.

If cheap grace is grace without cost, cheap worship is worship without cost.

In 2 Samuel 24, Araunah the Jebusite was ready to give David whatever he needed, for free—oxen, threshing sledges, ox yokes, the works. But David insisted that he himself should pay for it. He said, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” He knew that God deserved the very best.

David then bought the threshing floor and oxen from Araunah. He built an altar to the Lord there, and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings that he had paid for. David’s worship was not cheap, it was costly.

I wonder how much of our worship is cheap worship? When we enter God’s presence this week in corporate worship, will we be skimpy? Cheap worship exists when our worship costs us nothing. We enter God’s house, but do not intend to give ourselves. We listen to songs, but we do not intend to sing our praise. We listen to prayers, but we do not bring Him our own intercession. We flippantly lay a dollar in the offering plate, but we have not thought about our giving. We approach the sermon and our main concern is what we will get out of it.

Too often, that is our whole approach to worship—we are preoccupied with what is in it for me. What will we get out of it? The problem with cheap worship is that we are at the center, and because of that we put little or nothing into it.

What would costly worship look like? First it would put God at the center and realize that God is not here to serve us, but we are here to serve Him and give Him glory. We are coming to place our lives humbly before Him. We are coming as givers, not takers.

Costly worship realizes that the main gift God wants today is our lives. It would prepare for the Lord’s Day by thinking about the prayers we will bring. It would approach offerings with a “first fruit” mentality to honor God by giving Him our best. It would approach the Scriptures with a ready mind to hear the Word of the Lord. Contemplating the cost of our redemption, it would resolve to never approach God flippantly. Rather, we would come to lay genuine adoration and thanksgiving at His feet. In so doing we would discover the paradox that—the more costly our worship, the more we actually do get out of it!                                                         (DON SWEETING)

Genesis 2:18 (NIV) The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable  for him.”

Man was not meant to be a hermit. A solitary condition is not good. God designed Eve as a helper suitable for Adam. That is God’s plan and God’s intention for women.

I can hear the howls of derision from those with secular minds. The Biblical view of a helper is a team member not a slave. What they accomplish together is their accomplishment and not his alone. He must share the glory with his helper. In the upside down world of the Kingdom, the servant is the greatest. They need each other and are incomplete without each other.

The spiritual picture here is of Christ and the church. We were made new creatures from the blood that flowed from His side, just as Eve was made from the blood flowing from Adam’s side. We are to be His helper. That is why He calls us co-laborers. It is not as though He could not do it by Himself, but that He wants to include us in what He is doing. He wants to share His work with us for our benefit. It is not good for us to be alone. We need to be at His side, laboring with Him for His glory.

Genesis 2:24 (NIV) For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

We are to be joined to Him so that all other attachments are a distant second. Does that describe your relationship with the groom, Christ Jesus? By His Spirit, are you a suitable helper for Him?

Lord Jesus, help me to be the helper You intend me to be as I yield to Your life in me. Amen (SOURCE UNKNOWN)

Have you ever noticed that the majority of the things found in nature are green? Is it any coincidence? God created our eyes to see all the beautiful things He made for us to behold. God created the grass, trees, plants and leaves to be green for a reason. Green is the color that our eyes MOST EASILY see.

Psalm 23:2 says: “He makes me lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside quiet waters,”

The Lord created the grass, the trees and most plants to be green because He loves us. There are slight variations of green, but all are shades of a deep, emerald green. And He made this emerald green plant life to be the most abundant thing in our sight when we’re outside. Everywhere we look: trees, grass, bushes, hedges, and yes, even weeds. All shades of green. Imagine if plants were some other color. Can you imagine purple or red grass and trees all year long? That would be very hard on the eyes. No, God made all things to compliment the other. Our eyes best see the abundance of green in all of creation.

Sing to the Lord with grateful praise; make music to our God on the harp.

He covers the sky with clouds; He supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. (Psalm 147: 7-8)

The Lord, the Most Creative Designer Ever, made brightly-colored flowers and fruits that add splashes of color when they are in season. And, in autumn, the trees change color from deep emerald to blazing purples, reds, oranges, and yellows. Both are refreshing to our eyes. Imagine a world where there are no flowers, and no changing of the leaves in autumn, before winter comes. God knew exactly how to create a beautiful world for our eyes to behold!         (SOURCE UNKNOWN)