Don't Worry...Really?

July 1 (Matthew 6:32)

… your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.  (NLT)

Don’t you hate it when people tell you not to worry about something?  Telling someone not to worry is often something we say when we really do not know what else to say.  It’s like saying, “How are you?” to someone at the grocery store.  We aren’t really interested in the response and certainly don’t want to get into a long conversation.  We just want to get the milk and get home.

Part of the reason being told not to worry can seem irritating is that the person saying it cannot help us with what worries us, and we both know it.  Jesus, on the other hand, offers us no mere social nicety.  He does not give us a platitude.  In Matthew 6:25-34, He tells us not to worry, He points out how God cares for the needs of His other creatures, and then He makes it quite personal.  He looks His disciples in the eye and says, “Your Father in heaven knows what you need.”

Do you honestly think your Father does not know what you need as well?  This isn’t about sucking it up and pushing your worries down so deep no one well ever know just how scared you really are.  This isn’t about blithely saying, “I’m a Christian, so I guess things will work out.”  This isn’t about a system of faith or religion at all.  It is about a person.  God is a person.  He is your Father.  He knows you…yes, you.  He knows what you need.  He is aware of your situation.  And He is the one telling you not to worry.

Father, help me to keep my focus on You and Your promises when I grow nervous about the problems and demands that face me.  Help me to look not to my own resources or even the kind assurances of others.  I know You work through such things, but it is always You providing the actual help and answers.  And thank You, Jesus, for reminding me of that.  Amen.

Copyright © 2018 by Steven R. Perkins

Where Do You Put Your Trust?

March 11 (Psalm 20:7)

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,         but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.  (ESV)

We often tell teenagers to begin building a good resume.  We tell them to get involved with sports or music, to serve in the community, and to take part in extracurricular activities so they will have a resume that looks good to scholarship committees and college admission boards.  I would ask what in the name of God we are doing, but whatever it is, it is not in the name of God.  We are training our children at an early age to put their hopes for the future in their accomplishments today.  We are teaching them to trust in chariots and horses.

It is true, of course, that a high G.P.A. can help a student gain admission to college just as surely as your high productivity last quarter can help you secure a promotion.  This is the way the world works.  Yet when we begin to live and die first by our transcripts and then later by our profit and loss statements, we go quickly astray, and at the end of the day, deep in your heart of hearts, you know that such things really do not matter.  They really don’t.

When you approach a task with confidence, is it confidence based on your resume or on the character of your Lord?  When you fear what is coming toward you, is it because you don’t think you have what it takes or because you don’t think God does?  A good look at our confidence and our fear will show us where we actually put our trust.

It amazes me sometimes, Lord, how much I am actually depending on my own strength and abilities rather than on You.  Honestly, most of the day I live as if everything were up to me.  Help me to rely less on my talents, even though You have given them to me, and more directly on You.  I ask it in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Copyright © 2018 by Steven R. Perkins

Our Hope, God's Pleasure

November 12 (Psalm 147:11)

But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,

     in those who hope in his steadfast love.  (ESV)

God wants you to trust Him.  He wants you to put your faith and hope in Him.  He wants you to look to Him all the time and for everything.

This is utterly contrary to how we truly think.  We can recite this verse and nod in agreement all we want, but we live our lives as if it said, “But the LORD takes pleasure in those who work hard and do everything for themselves, in those who don’t bother Him and prove their love for Him by getting all their tasks done perfectly and on time.”  You can pretend around others, but is that not how you often think?

Now here is the part that makes my heart soar.  God loves it when you trust Him!  He takes pleasure when you put your hope in His steadfast love!  Do you want to please God?  Stop fearing the things of life and putting your hope in your money, your abilities, and the systems of this world.  Put all your eggs into one basket and focus entirely on God.  He loves it when His children do that!

Father, You know how much I need to trust You and how often I put my hope in other things.  I am coming to You now with my weakness.  I try to do and control it all.  You know I can’t, and I know I can’t, but I try just the same.  Break the grip I have over my life so that I may offer it up to You with open hands.  In the name of my Lord, Jesus, the perfect model of trust and obedience, amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

God's Loving Guidance

January 8 (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.  (ESV)

Do you ever need some advice or encouragement?  You aren’t going to ask a stranger for it and you certainly won’t go to someone you don’t trust.  I would rather muddle along with my own confusion and feeble efforts than to open my heart to someone I am not absolutely certain is wise and truly cares for me.

I need to hear each morning how much God loves me.  Fortunately, there are ample statements of His love throughout the Bible.  I can turn to almost any page and find references to His steadfast love.  Armed with confidence in the love of God, I can then trust Him.  I can lay my questions and confusions and worries and doubts before Him and can ask Him the way to go.  In short, I can lift my very soul to Him.

My relationship with God, however, has to proceed in the right order.  I can pay lip service to trusting Him, but I am not going to seek His guidance for the things that matter most if do not believe in His love.  It has to start there.  Once I am convinced of this, and I need to be convinced again every morning, I will run to Him with my every need.

Father, thank You for evidence of Your love…in the Bible, in the countless examples throughout my own life, and in the whisperings of the Holy Spirit deep in my heart.  There are so many things I need Your help with, and I bring those before You now.  Show me the way I should go as I lift my soul to You.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

Wrestling With God

November 6 (Genesis 32:28)

“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”  (ESV)

Both of our children have loved wrestling with Daddy.  Our daughter used to make me sit in the middle of the living room floor so she could barrel down the hallway toward me to knock me over.  Our son still likes to wrestle me and try to hold me down, which is much more likely to happen now that he is a strapping young man!

None of this would happen if my children could not trust me.  If mine were a mercurial temperament, capable of flying off the handle in anger unpredictably, they would never take the risk of wrestling with me.  So what does it say when Jacob wrestled all night with God?  What does the give-and-take, back-and-forth relationship between Peter and Jesus say?  God blessed Jacob and changed his name to Israel, which means “one who wrestles with God.”  Jesus told Peter that He would build His church upon him.

If there is one thing we can be confident of, it is this.  God is good.  He loves us.  We can struggle with Him and hurl at Him our anger, our fears, our doubts, our worries, our concerns, and our confusion.  He is not afraid of anything we bring to Him, and He will respond in the rough-and-tumble, sometimes bold, sometimes frightening, but always and fundamentally good way of the Father Who loves us.  About what do you need to wrestle with Him today?

Father, sometimes I think You do not care, and so I keep my burdens to myself.  Sometimes I am afraid You will reject me, and so I hide my deepest needs.  Sometimes I am simply not sure if You like me, and so I withdraw from You.  Help me draw confidence from Jesus Himself, Who more than any other person or thing has revealed Your graceful, loving nature, for there is much about which I need to wrestle with You.  Amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

Strength In God Alone

July 3 (Exodus 3:11-12; Judges 6:15-16)

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”  He said, “But I will be with you….”

And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.”  And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you….”  (ESV)

Moses and Gideon both questioned their abilities to accomplish the tasks that God had set them.  Welcome to the club, boys!  If they had put these doubts to their friends, their friends would likely have responded by pointing out all the things they were good at.  They would have talked about the college degrees that Moses and Gideon had, how long they had worked at their companies, and all the past awards and successes that lined the walls of their offices.

We do the same, and we even do it with ourselves.  When I am daunted by something, my first thought is to rehearse my own resume for encouragement to face the task.  Notice the difference in God’s response.  He does not replay the greatest hits of Moses and Gideon.  He does not even refute their claims to inferiority.  Instead, He says, “I will be with you.”

No matter how well padded our resumes, no matter how much life experience and talents we possess, we will always feel inadequate to some task.  That feeling may be a lie from our enemy to discourage us or it may the truth.  We may truly not be up to the challenge.  Either way, our strength to face it comes from none other than the Lord God of the universe.  Let that sink in.  God promises to be with us and He does not lie.  Surely that is worth more than all the mental and emotional bootstrapping we do in the vain effort to help ourselves.

Father, thank You for the abilities You have given me.  I am grateful for them and all that You have allowed me to experience in my life, both the good and the bad.  Yet I set all that aside and claim my strength and identity in You.  I am Your child.  Jesus is my savior and brother.  In You alone I have what it takes to face what You have called me to this day.  In the name of Jesus, Who looked to You even on the cross, amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

Trusting The Love of God

November 22 (Psalm 13:5)

But I have trusted in your steadfast love….  (ESV)

The Bible is unrelentingly realistic and unrelentingly hopeful, and one of the most wonderful words in all of Scripture is the conjunction “but.”  Not one of our ancestors in the faith portrays a silly, pie-in-the-sky attitude as if everything is or should be rosy all the time.  To have such a view or expectation of life would be a special kind of ridiculous.  We have pains, challenges, and difficulties.  Just look at your last week or think of the week ahead.

But.  Too many people stay stuck in the problems that come to us all.  Those who truly know God can say, “But….”  From King David to Jesus, those who not only know about the love of God but who dwell richly in that love can say confidently, even in the midst of the worst tragedies, that they will trust in Him.

This is not a sappy self-help notion that you can read, nod at approvingly, and then go on doing things your own way.  Seriously, stop for a moment.  Acknowledge with the Father Who loves you the issues that are plaguing you or causing you fear.  Lay them before His feet and then boldly, as if shouting in the face of hell, proclaim that you will trust His love no matter what.

Lord, today I take charge of my fears and the problems that are before me by letting them go.  I place them in Your hands, confident that You have far greater ability to handle them than I do.  Whether they are dealt with today or I must pray this pray again and again, I am confident in Your love, a love that was proved forever by the work of Jesus, my Savior, in Whose name I pray.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

The Existence of God

November 8 (Romans 8:38-39)

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (ESV)

I love falling in love all over again.  Today, for example, I saw my wife moving through the house and did a double take.  I couldn’t help embracing her and telling her how beautiful she is.  The same thing happens when I look at certain pictures of our children or gaze on them as they sleep.  I am overwhelmed with a renewed sense of what I have always known, that I love them more than anything.

Our pastor recently delivered a message about the existence of God.  Did I really need to hear that message?  I have committed my life to Jesus Christ and strive to follow hard after Him daily.  Was there any doubt in my mind about the existence of God?

The sad fact is yes.  Yes, I needed to hear that message because, yes, despite more evidence than would fit in a dump truck, I still allow the world’s pressures to cause me to doubt God’s love, His grace, His provision, and His forgiveness.  As our pastor walked us through what I already knew, the most wonderful thing happened.  I fell in love again.

Lord, You are more real than my own hand in front of my face.  Strengthen my faith so that I may see with the eyes of my heart, relying less on my physical senses.  Even in those moments when I become faith-blind and cannot see You, may I cling to the truth that nothing can separate me from You.  In the name of Jesus, Who bridged the great divide for me, amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

A King's Response To Trouble

October 25 (Isaiah 37:14)

Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.  (ESV)

What do you do when you get bad news?  When I learn of something tragic, a horrible illness striking close to my family, for example, I go straight to prayer.  When it is a problem with the computer or an issue at work, I tend to, as my mom used to say, run around like a chicken with its head cut off.  Perhaps the opposite is true for you.  You may give God your daily troubles, but fall apart over the big stuff.

King Hezekiah received a letter from the King of Assyria that threatened the kingdom of Judah in no uncertain terms.  To Hezekiah it must have seemed like turning around to find to find a hulking, ten-foot giant standing behind him about to drive him into the ground with a club.  So what did this king do?  Did he go first to his war council?  Did he run and hide?  Did he fly off to battle?  He laid the letter before the Lord and prayed.

There are certain things that cause you stress and distress.  They may be big or they may be small, but there are just certain aspects of life that throw you off your game.  When those things come your way, consider not responding to them at all until you have spread them before the Lord.  As a faithful follower of Christ, you will respond in good time, in God’s time, and your response will be so much better when it has been guided by the hand of the Lord.

Father, it is my nature to respond to things quickly.  I feel the demands of people and the pressures of life clamoring for an immediate response.  Today I give You each of the matters demanding an answer from me.  Help me to give no answer but what I hear from You.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

October 26 (Romans 10:11)

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”  (ESV)

What things shame or embarrass you?  It is usually something like realizing you have gone out with two different socks, calling someone by the wrong name, or thinking that the party you are supposed to plan for your friend is next weekend only to look at your calendar and see that is in ten minutes.  In other words, we are embarrassed when some aspect of our life for which we had responsibility has fallen apart.  We have dropped the ball, and there is no one else to blame for it.  Blush!

Paul tells the Romans that if they will trust in God, they will not be ashamed.  No matter what happens as a result of the decision to trust God, shame and embarrassment are not among the consequences.  We can trust Him, absolutely and without qualification.

When was the last time you trusted God like that?  Come on, now.  You are not at church.  There is no need to put on your Perfect Christian mask.  It is just you thinking about your life.  So when was it?  Yeah, I can’t really remember the last time, either.

Father, I want so much to trust You.  In my head, I know the words of  Scripture about Your faithfulness are true, yet it feels like jumping off a cliff with no parachute.  Strengthen my faith so that I can live a life of confident abandon, trusting really and truly in You.  In the name of Jesus, Who trusted You in all things, I pray.  Amen.

Copyright © 2014 by Steven R. Perkins