Hope in the Middle of the Storm

“Therefore I urge you to take nourishment, for this is for your survival, since not a hair will fall from the head of any of you.” ACTS 27:34

 

PONDER THIS

In Acts 27:30-32, there were some sailors aboard ship with Paul during a fierce storm who said, “We’ll get in that lifeboat. We’ll get off this big ship, and we’ll escape.” These men sought a form of escapism built upon selfishness. Don’t do it! You may say, “I’ll outrun or drown out my problems.” No, they can swim. You’re the one who is going to drown.

There were others who were working, throwing everything overboard. They couldn’t see which way to go. Do you know people like that? This was a storm they’d been warned about, to begin with, and now they were facing the consequences of their actions. That’s how the godless sometimes go through storms.

But what about the godly? Paul called the men together and encouraged them. He gave a good message from God. Just as in this account, there are three classes in America: those who are afraid, those who don’t know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bibles.

Which of these categories would you count yourself in? Why?

How can you remain encouraged and encourage others in the middle of life’s storms?

PRACTICE THIS

Encourage someone you know who is having a tough time today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

How to Serve a Bad Boss

Rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:7–8)

Consider these five things from Ephesians 6:7–8 in connection to your job.

1) A call to radically Lord-centered living.

This is astonishing compared to the way we usually live. Paul says that all our work should be done as work for Christ, not for any human supervisor. With good will render service “as to the Lord and not to man.”

This means that we will think of the Lord in what we are doing at work. We will ask, Why would the Lord like this done? How would the Lord like this done? When would the Lord like this done? Will the Lord help me to do this? What effect will this have for the Lord’s honor? In other words, being a Christian means radically Lord-centered living and working.

2) A call to be a good person.

Lord-centered living means being a good person and doing good things. Paul says, “With a good will [render service] . . . whatever good anyone does.” Jesus said that when we let our light shine, men will see our “good works” and give glory to our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

3) Power to do a good job for inconsiderate earthly employers.

Paul’s aim is to empower Christians, with Lord-centered motives, to go on doing good for supervisors who are not considerate. How do you keep on doing good in a job when your boss ignores you or even criticizes you? Paul’s answer is: stop thinking about your boss as your main supervisor, and start working for the Lord. Do this in the very duties given to you by your earthly supervisor.

4) Encouragement that nothing good is done in vain.

Perhaps the most amazing sentence of all is this: “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” This is amazing. Everything! “Whatever good anyone does.” Every little thing you do that is good is seen and valued and rewarded by the Lord.

And he will pay you back for it. Not in the sense that you have earned anything — as if you could put him in your debt. He owns you, and everything in the universe. He owes us nothing. But he freely, graciously chooses to reward us for all the good things done in faith.

5) Encouragement that insignificant status on earth is no hindrance to great reward in heaven.

The Lord will reward every good thing you do — “whether he is a bondservant or is free.” Your supervisor may think you are a nobody — a mere bondservant, so to speak. Or he may not even know you exist. That doesn’t matter. The Lord knows you exist. And in the end no faithful service will be in vain.

John Piper 

Our Unchanging Hope

“For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” ROMANS 8:22

 

PONDER THIS

The second law of thermodynamics is energy can never be destroyed, but it continually becomes less available for further work as it unravels. In plain English, everything tends to wear out and run down. Have you learned that? Leave a garden by itself and it will become overgrown with weeds. Your body breaks down over time. Even a car left alone without being overused will break down over time.

Everything is marked by death, decay, and disintegration. Why would God, who created everything, make it that way? Because of sin. There’s a curse upon creation, and it tends to wind down. The evolutionist says that things get more complex. Things move toward precision. Given enough time, disorganized things become organized. Yet this is just simply not what we see in our world and in our lives. We all go toward decay; this is why we need to hold onto our eternal God amid all the things around us that will fail.

How have you seen movement toward decay impact your life?

How has the brokenness of the world led you toward God?

PRACTICE THIS

Encourage another, who is struggling, to look to God who is eternal and unchanging.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Are You an Encourager?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.”

1 Thessalonians 5:11

 

PONDER THIS

Wise encouragement is better than lavish praise. Children need encouragement.

I once planted some flowers. They were beautiful, but after a little while they started to wilt. So, I went and got the hose and sprinkled them. When I woke up the next morning, they were beautiful again. Children need encouragement like plants need water. They need it repeatedly. You need to catch them doing something right and let them know through your encouragement that you believe in them. Let your speech affirm them.

What is the difference between encouragement and praise? Praise tells a child, “I get approval when I do good. If I will do good, then they will approve of me. When my performance is good, the approval rate goes up. When my performance is bad, then my acceptance goes down, and my self-image goes down with it.” Praise says, “You are great because you did something.” There’s nothing wrong with praise, but I’m saying that encouragement is twice as strong as praise. Encouragement looks at a child and values that child, not primarily for what the child can do, but for who the child is. Encouragement says, “You can do it. Thank you. I’m so grateful for you.”

When have you been impacted by a word of encouragement?

Who are some people you can encourage today?

PRACTICE THIS

Encourage someone close to you today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Do You Encourage Your Husband?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.”

Proverbs 31:23

 

PONDER THIS

The woman described in Proverbs 31 is to her husband a help meet—a completer, an enhancer. This verse says her husband is known in the gates. The gates were the place of commerce in this day. This was like her husband being known in city hall or in the courthouse square. Her husband is a well-known citizen, but because God is extolling the wife here and not the husband, the implication is very clear that he is what he is because she is what she is. Likewise, I know I am what I am today, not only because of God, but because of my precious wife. I know that beyond any shadow of doubt. And that's what this verse is saying. Her husband is known in the gates. She is a woman who is behind her husband, encouraging her husband at every step.

Why is it important that wives learn to encourage their husbands?

Do you know of a couple who mutually encourage and appreciate one another in a godly manner?

PRACTICE THIS

Take time this week to show your appreciation to someone who is good at encouraging others.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Are you an encourager? or Discourager?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;  Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Someone has well said that discouragement is a darkroom where the negatives of fear and failure are developed.

Some people are encouragers and others are discouragers. Have you ever met a discourager? They’re like a drink of water to a drowning man. They can brighten up a room by leaving it. They leave you drained and depressed.

But an encourager leaves you full and refreshed. God has cornered the market on encouragement. All encouragement comes from God. You’re never more like God than when you’re encouraging people and never more like the devil than when you are discouraging people.

ACTION POINT:

Find a needy person and enrich him; a lonely person and include him; a misunderstood person and affirm him; an undiscovered person and develop him; a failing person and restore him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Not Nearly Hedonistic Enough

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19–20)

The message that needs to be shouted from the houses of high finance is this: Secular man, you are not nearly hedonistic enough!

Quit being satisfied with the little 2% yields of pleasure that get eaten up by the moths of inflation and the rust of death. Invest in the blue-chip, high-yield, divinely insured securities of heaven.

Devoting a life to material comforts and security and thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole. But investing a life in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending:

“Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. [And thus] provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail” (Luke 12:33).

This message is very good news: Come to Christ, in whose presence are fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. Join us in the labor of Christian Hedonism. For the Lord has spoken: It is more blessed to love than to live in luxury! More blessed now, and forever.

John Piper 

Be an Encourager

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;  Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Someone has well said that discouragement is a darkroom where the negatives of fear and failure are developed.

Some people are encouragers and others are discouragers. Have you ever met a discourager? They’re like a drink of water to a drowning man. They can brighten up a room by leaving it. They leave you drained and depressed.

But an encourager leaves you full and refreshed. God has cornered the market on encouragement. All encouragement comes from God. You’re never more like God than when you’re encouraging people and never more like the devil than when you are discouraging people.

Find a needy person and enrich him; a lonely person and include him; a misunderstood person and affirm him; an undiscovered person and develop him; a failing person and restore him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Be an Encourager

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;  Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Someone has well said that discouragement is a darkroom where the negatives of fear and failure are developed.

Some people are encouragers and others are discouragers. Have you ever met a discourager? They’re like a drink of water to a drowning man. They can brighten up a room by leaving it. They leave you drained and depressed.

But an encourager leaves you full and refreshed. God has cornered the market on encouragement. All encouragement comes from God. You’re never more like God than when you’re encouraging people and never more like the devil than when you are discouraging people.

ACTION POINT:

Find a needy person and enrich him; a lonely person and include him; a misunderstood person and affirm him; an undiscovered person and develop him; a failing person and restore him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Longing For The New Normal

Psalm 85

1 LORD, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. 

2 You forgave the iniquity of your people; you covered all their sin. Selah 

3 You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger. 

4 Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us! 

5 Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? 

6 Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? 

7 Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation. 

8 Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly. 

9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. 

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. 

11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky. 

12 Yes, the LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. 

13 Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way. 

There are places in Scripture that give us a sense of comfort and contentment with normality.

But then there are also places in Scripture (Psalm 85) that exhort us to a kind of holy discontent with the way things are, with the normal rhythms of life in a fallen world.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it was just one or the other? Wouldn’t that simplify our expectations?

This Psalm is meant to cultivate in us a longing for a new normal—a longing for the inbreaking of God’s mercy and power

in our lives, in the church, and in the world.

Recall (1-3)

When Israel falls into unbelief and idolatry, often that is linked with forgetting the displays of the saving power of God in

their midst.

We often pray like Deists, as though God had a policy of non-interference with the world as it is.

The Old Testament is theology in action. God works, speaks, feeds, subdues, lifts up, brings down, leads, loves, saves!

Pray (4-7)

In one sense the ultimate judgment is for a sovereign God to refuse

to overcome that which is most normal about life here – namely global idolatry and personal idolatry.

The Psalmist doesn’t merely say, “Help us to turn.” It pleads with

God to do something more: “Turn us, bring us back, restore us!”

God revives his Church by revealing himself afresh. He “shows us”

his steadfast love.

This passage and its faith-filled prayer for a new normal, is a kind

of rebuke: If you don’t believe personal, societal, national, even global revival is possible, you have forgotten the power of God.

Trust and Obey (8-13)

Whatever this reviving work of God is – it’s not something that

renders the believer passive.

If we don’t pray for things that might set us up for disappointment

we’re not doing it right.

We are not called to merely pray safe, self-protecting, face-saving

(“realistic”) prayers.

We are to pray and hope as though God has options!

Thanks Matt!

True Friendship

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” Proverbs 27:17

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

True friends will put an edge on your life. They will make you a sharper person. Not all my friends do that for me, but my best friends do. Have you ever had a friend who loved you so much that he would even hurt you in order to help you? 

Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” What truer words of love can be spoken than from the heart of a friend who is going to spend an eternity with you? Even if those words hurt, they are words that will heal.

ACTION POINT:

Do you have a friend who sharpens you as iron? It will only take you a moment to send that friend an encouraging note or postcard. Do it today.

 LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Pass Along the Gift of Laughter

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.” Psalm 32:11

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A merry heart is the ability to capture and enjoy those wonderful times of life and let it turn to laughter. 

Your sense of humor is a gift from God. Research studies have shown that laughter, along with a well-rounded sense of humor, is one of the sure signs of intelligence. It is also known to produce endorphins in your body that generate feelings of well-being. 

Good, wholesome laughter is a gift from God. Abraham Lincoln said, “God must have meant for us to laugh, or else he would not have made so many mules, parrots, monkeys and human beings. God wants us to laugh.”

ACTION POINT:

Pass along the gift of laughter today to someone. Tell a good, wholesome joke. Send an email of a funny story to a friend you haven’t talked to in awhile.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Don’t Forget to Wear It!

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.” Proverbs 15:13

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

What is a smile? Someone once wrote:

“A smile costs nothing, but creates much good. It enriches those who receive it without impoverishing those who give it away. It happens in a flash, but the memory of it can last forever. No one is so rich that he can get along without it. No one is too poor to feel rich when receiving it. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad and nature’s best anecdote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen.”

ACTION POINT:

When you get dressed this morning, don’t forget to put on a smile. Wear a smile all day from the inner joy that only Jesus can bring to your heart. Don’t feel an inner joy? Then ask for one!

 LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

The Devil’s Most Prized Tool

BIBLE MEDITATION:

 “Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord…” Psalm 25:15

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There’s a story about the devil auctioning off his tools. He had a high price on pride, laziness, arrogance, hate, envy, and jealousy. But there was one tool that had a sign under it, “Not For Sale.” 

Someone said, “What is that tool and why isn’t it for sale?” 

“Well,” he said, “I can’t afford to get rid of that one. It’s my chief tool, discouragement. With this tool, I can pry open a heart, and once I get in I can do most anything I want.” 

Do you want me to tell you why you get discouraged? I’ll give it to you in a nutshell—you’ve taken your eyes off God!

ACTION POINT:

Are you discouraged? If not, praise God! And find someone who is so that you can give them the encouragement they need in Jesus Christ. Maybe it’s your next-door neighbor, maybe it’s a co¬worker, maybe it’s your spouse.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers