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If you’re discouraged because of God’s delay in answering your prayers, understand the delay is NOT a denial. Just because the answer hasn’t come – YET – that doesn’t mean God isn’t going to answer or that he’s forgotten you or that he doesn’t care about you.

It simply means “not yet!”

Part of becoming spiritually mature is learning the difference between “no” and “not yet,” between a denial and a delay. The Bible tells us, “He who is coming will come and will not delay.” (Hebrews 10:37 NIV)

God’s delay may be a test of your patience. Anybody can be patient once. And, most people can be patient twice. And, a lot of us can be patient three times. So God tests our patience over and over and over.

Why? So he can see how patient you are? No!

He does it so you can see how patient you are. So you’ll know what’s inside you, and you’ll be able to know your level of commitment. God tests you so that you can know he is faithful, even if the answers you seek are delayed.

If you’re discouraged, turn it around by remembering God teaches you patience during delay. Ask him to transform your discouragement into patience.

They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneeled and worshiped him. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Matthew 2:11 (MSG)

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What do you give the guy who’s got everything?  What do you give to Jesus? You can give him your trust.

Because God gives you a choice, he doesn’t have your trust until you give it to him. Faith is voluntary. God will never force you to trust him. It is up to you to decide how much you will trust God in 2011.

So let me just get real blunt, what are you expecting God to do in your life in 2011? If you expect him to do a lot, God can do a lot. If you expect him to do a little, God can do a little. If you don’t expect him to do anything, he won’t do anything because Jesus says, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” (Matthew 9:29 NIV)

Are you going to trust yourself, are you going to trust the economy, are you going to trust somebody else, or are you going to trust God?

Will you trust Jesus enough to give him your whole life? Jesus makes an amazing promise for anybody who does this. He says, if you will seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, then he will give you the other things as well. (Matthew 6:33 NIV)

But we must seek his kingdom first. We must seek God’s purpose and plan and righteousness for our lives, and that requires that we give him our trust. Ask God to help you give your trust entirely to him this coming year, and then watch what he does in your life.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35 (NIV)

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Give God the best part of your day, when you are the freshest and most alert. Don’t try to serve God with your leftover time. Remember, too, that your best time may be different from someone else’s.

For most of us, however, early in the morning seems to be the best time. It was Jesus’ own practice to rise early to pray and meet with the Father: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

You might even consider having two quiet times (morning and night). Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, used to have code letters for his night quiet time: HWLW. Whenever he was with a group of people at night or home with his wife and the conversation seemed to be ending, he would say, “All right, HWLW.” HWLW stood for “His Word the Last Word”; and he practiced that through the years as a way of ending a day with one’s thoughts fixed on the Lord (from Daws: A Man Who Trusted God by Betty Lee Skinner).

Whatever time you set, be consistent. Schedule it on your calendar; make an appointment with God as you would with anyone else. Make a date with Jesus!



It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. 2 Corinthians 3:5 (NLT)

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Life is a struggle, but what most people don’t realize is that our struggle, like Jacob’s, is really with God! We want to be God, and there’s no way we’re going to win that struggle, but we try anyway.
A.W. Tozer said, “The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven’t yet come to the end of themselves. We’re still trying to give orders, and interfering with God’s work within us.”

We aren’t God, and we never will be. We’re humans, and the times when we try to be God are the times we end up most like Satan, who tried to be equal with God, too. We accept our humanity intellectually, but not emotionally. We give mental assent to the idea, but when faced with our own limitations, we react with irritation, anger, and resentment. We want to be taller (or shorter), smarter, stronger, more talented, beautiful, and wealthy.  We want to have it all and do it all, and become upset when it doesn’t happen. Then, when we notice God gave others characteristics we don’t have, we respond with envy, jealousy, and self-pity.

What it means to surrender
Surrendering to God is not passive resignation, fatalism, or an excuse for laziness. It is not accepting the status quo. It may mean the exact opposite: sacrificing your life in resistance to evil and injustice, or suffering in order to change what needs to be changed. God often calls surrendered people to do battle on his behalf. It not for cowards or doormats.

Surrendering is not putting your brain in neutral and giving up rational thinking. God would not waste the mind he gave you! God does not want robots to serve him. Surrendering is not repressing your personality. God wants to use your unique personality. Rather than being diminished, surrendering enhances your uniqueness.
C. S. Lewis observed, “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become – because he made us.  He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (NLT)

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The Bible says that Jesus was full of grace and truth. Truth is not a principle. Truth is a person; truth is Jesus Christ.
One of the clearest and best-known statements by Jesus is: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NLT)
Notice Jesus says, “I and the truth ….” He doesn’t say truth is a religion, or a ritual, or a set of rules and regulations. He says “I.” Truth is a person. This is what separates Jesus Christ from every other leader of every other faith. Other leaders have said, “I’m looking for the truth” or “I’m teaching the truth” or “I point to the truth” or “I’m a prophet of truth.” Jesus comes and says, “I am the truth.”
A lot of people say, “I think Jesus was just a great teacher.” But he couldn’t be just that: No great teacher would claim to be God if he wasn’t. Either Jesus is conning 2.3 billion people who believe a lie, or he was nuts, or Jesus is who he said he was.Everybody’s betting their life on something. I’m betting my life that Jesus is who he said he was.

What do you do with the truth once you’ve discovered it? Four things:
1. Believe the truth!
2. Do the truth — Truth is not just an intellectual exercise; it’s something you obey.
3. Stand for the truth — The Bible tells us our responsibility is to never oppose the truth but to stand for it at all times.
4. Spread the truth.

The Bible says, “Let everything you do reflect your love of the truth and the fact that you were in dead earnest about it.” (Titus 2:7) There’s a lot in the Bible that I don’t understand and that makes me uncomfortable. But the fact is, it is the truth. It is a map that always takes me where it promises. “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!’” (John 14:6-7, NLT)

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7 NIV).

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In the same way God spoke light into the darkness at creation, today he speaks light into the darkness of our hearts. He fills us with the light of the Holy Spirit, so we’re able to see God’s face, Jesus, with greater clarity even as he transforms us into the likeness of Christ.

Our brother, Paul, explains we are jars of clay–fragile, chipped, imperfect–exactly as God designed us to be so others will see the “all-surpassing power” of God through our fractured and shattered lives. We stand as monuments of God’s grace, and we bear an inscription written in God’s own hand: “Within this earthen container, the One True God is at work.”

Your weaknesses are a gift. You are God’s jar of clay, designed exactly the way he intended. In the places you are weak, God is strong. Your weaknesses are an opportunity for God’s light to shine even brighter from within you.

You don’t have to look good. So, stop trying! Just be who you are, a frail human designed by God to reveal his glory. Truthfully, we could use a whole lot more authenticity in the church. If you’re hurt, say it; if you’re angry, admit it; if you’re in love, show it; if you’re wrong, confess it; if you’re in need, reveal it.

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 (NIV)

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This Christmas season is a good time to remember that the reason God wants us to love is because he is love, and he created us to be like him – to love. The only reason we’re able to love is because God loves us: “Love comes from God … because God is love” (1 John 4:7-8 NIV).
We were created in God’s image to do two things on earth: Learn to love God and learn to love other people; life is all about love.
But love all started with God. He loved us first and that gives us the ability to love others (1 John 4:19). The only reason you can love God or love anybody else is because God first loved you. And he showed that love by sending Jesus Christ to earth to die for you. He showed that love by creating you. He showed that love by everything you have in life; it’s all a gift of God’s love. 
In order to love others and to become great lovers, we first need to understand and feel how much God loves us. We don’t want to just talk about love, read about love, or discuss about love; our need is to experience the love of God.
We need to reach a day when we finally, fully understand how God loves us completely and unconditionally. We need to become secure in the truth that we cannot make God stop loving us.
Once we’re secure inside God’s unconditional love, we’ll start cutting people a lot of slack. We won’t be as angry as we’ve been. We’ll be more patient.  We’ll be more forgiving. We’ll be more merciful. We’ll give others grace.
But you cannot give to others what you have not received yourself, and so my hope is that, as you learn how much God loves you, you’ll also let him heal your heart so that his love can flow freely through you. It’s impossible to love others until you really feel loved yourself. 

Habakkuk 3:18 KJV

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Habakkuk was a prophet during a period of history when Israel was quite wicked. Habakkuk asked God to judge the wickedness of His people, and God obliged. But the prophet was astonished that God chose the Chaldeans to inflict this judgment. The Chaldeans or Babylonians were much wicked than the Israelites. Habakkuk couldn’t understand why God used a nation more deplorably evil to chasten His people. At the end of the brief book that bears his name, Habakkuk puts the intense conflict aside and worships his God in song…

In a moment of deep discouragement, Habakkuk used music to lift himself up, even to the point where he said…

“I am ready to jump for joy to the God of my salvation, and spin around because of who God is…”

David, too, used song to lift his spirit during the discouraging times of life. He was a great musician and poet – his psalms are actually praise hymns to God.

source: OMFlit Book

Even I, myself, really used song to praise and worship God. In my saddest time, I cannot express my feelings to God sometimes if I’m talking to Him. My way of relieving myself is to worship Him in a song. I always sung Christian songs and believe me, it can relief your worries and you will forget your problems. How amazing the love of our God. Hope you also, will worship God even through song. That’s the greatest one thing to feel the presence of the Lord.

Thank you Jesus!

 ”Your name will no longer be Jacob . . . From now on you will be called Israel” (Genesis 32:28 NLT).

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You don’t have to stay the same! In a conversion, we’re given a new identity. Once Jacob confesses his need to be in control, God’s loving and gracious response is to give him a new identity.

Now the transformation begins! Notice three things happen:

- God gives Jacob a brand new identity. God says, “Jacob–manipulator. That’s the old you. We’re not going to call you that anymore. We’re going to change your name to Israel, which means Prince with God.” Essentially, God says, “I know you’ve blown it; I know you’re conniving, but I see in you a prince. Beneath all your emotional hang-ups, all your insecurities, all the stuff you don’t want anybody else to know, I see a prince.” God is saying that today to many of us, “Beneath all of your hang-ups, I see a princess/prince. Beneath all the sins, all the things you’ve done wrong in life, I really see the potential in you. You can be something great. You can be what I made you to be. Not what you are now, but what I made you to be.”

- God blesses Jacob/Israel. “Then he blessed Jacob there” (Genesis 32:29 NLT). If we want God’s blessing, we’ve got to take the steps God requires of us.

- God gave Jacob/Israel a limp. Remember when they wrestled, God dislocated Jacob’s. The Bible says for the rest of his life, Jacob walked with a limp (Genesis 32:31 NLT). It served as a daily reminder to depend upon God. From that point on, Jacob was going to have to stand in God’s power, not his own. Jacob leaves the encounter both stronger and weaker–stronger in that he’s not the same person any more, but weaker because now he must depend on God for his daily walk.

God does His deepest work in your life when He deals with your identity: who you are, the way you see yourself, your self-perception. You will always tend to act according to the way you think about yourself. So God does His deepest changes in your life by changing the way you see yourself.

He says, “Let me show you how I see you.” When you see yourself the way God sees you, it’s going to change your life. And you can start acting in a whole new way. You don’t have to stay the same: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).

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There’s nothing you can do as well without Christ as you can with him. Any struggle you/re facing will be easier to conquer with his help.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to clean up all your messes before you ask God for help. That’s like curing yourself of a disease before you drive down and see the doctor. Go to God first and get his help in all your battles.

The secret of self-control is Christ’s control. Then, as you face temptations that are too strong for you to resist, remember he is with you and turn them over to him. Remember, Christ provides the power to change your life!

But Jesus will also use two things to help you develop self-control:

Avoid temptation. It is just pure common sense: Don’t put yourself in situations where you’ll face temptation. If you struggle with alcohol, don’t go into a bar. If you’re struggling to lose weight, don’t load the refrigerator with ice cream. Do whatever you must to avoid temptation.

Make yourself accountable. Find someone who will check up on you, pray for you, and encourage you in the areas where you want to develop more self-control. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (NIV).

If you’re serious about self-control, find another believer you trust and say, “I have this problem. I’ve confessed it to God. I’ve asked forgiveness, and now I want to ask you to help me. Will you be my ‘buddy,’ a person I can call on the phone when I need support and encouragement?”

I believe God intends for every church to be filled with “buddy” relationships where people are accountable to each other, where they help and encourage each other in the Lord.

Having someone hold you accountable is tough, but it works.

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God allows a crisis to get our attention, and then he uses the crisis to develop our character. One thing that signals we’re changing is when we confess that we’re the problem. We stop blaming other people and we admit, “I am the problem with my life.” Until you understand this, there can be no major change in your life. This is the breakthrough God knows we need.

God asks Jacob, “What is your name?” This is a very strange request because God obviously already knew Jacob’s name. We need to understand that in ancient cultures you were always named for your character, what you really were. Your name might be Tall or Short; or your name might be Brave or Lazy. You were given a name which was your label. It wasn’t just something that sounded nice. It represented your character.

That’s a problem because Jacob means “deceiver, manipulator, liar.” And Jacob lived up to his name! When Jacob says, “My name is Jacob,” it is an act of confession. He’s admitting, “I am a manipulator.”

Whenever I read this verse I wonder what it would be like to be named for your greatest character fault: “Hi, I’m Greedy . . . ” What would be your name? Bitter? Angry? Uncontrollable Temper? Lustful? Afraid? “Hi, I’m Gossip.”

Here’s the insight into this: We will never be able to change until we openly and honestly and authentically admit our sin, our weakness, our fault, our frailty, our character defects, confessing this to ourselves, to God, and to other people.

One of the most humbling things in the world to do is to go, “This is who I am. I am a __________.” You fill in the blank. “I am a worrier . . . I am a domineering person . . . I am a person who runs from conflict . . . I am an addict.” Just admit it. Stop making excuses; stop rationalizing; stop justifying; stop blaming other people. You’ve got to come clean about what everybody else sees but you won’t admit.

When you come to God and say, “God, I want to own up to the weaknesses and the filth, the wrong in my life.” And you tell God, “This is who I really am,” God is not going to be surprised. God already knows, but he needs you to confess so the work of change can begin.

What do you need to admit about yourself?

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Have you ever watched a food advertisement on television and suddenly felt you were hungry? Have you ever heard someone cough and immediately felt the need to clear your throat? Ever watched someone release a big yawn and felt the urge to yawn yourself?

This is the power of suggestion working within your mind. We naturally move toward whatever our attention is focused on. The more you think about something, the stronger it takes hold of you, which is why the Bible teaches that we should, “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace” (2 Timothy 2:22 NLT).

That is why repeating, “I must stop eating too much . . . or stop smoking . . . or stop lusting” is a self-defeating strategy. It keeps you focused on what you don’t want. It’s like announcing, “I’m never going to do what my mom did.” You are setting yourself up to repeat it.

Temptation begins by capturing your attention. What gets your attention arouses your emotions. Then your emotions activate your behavior, and you act on what you feel. The more you focus on “I don’t want to do this,” the stronger temptation draws you into its web.

Ignoring a temptation is far more effective than fighting it. Once your mind is on something else, the temptation loses its power. So when temptation calls you on the phone, don’t argue with it, just hang up!

Sometimes this means physically leaving a tempting situation. This is one time it is okay to run away. Get up and turn off the television set. Walk away from a group that is gossiping. Leave the theater in the middle of the movie.

To avoid being stung, stay away from the bees!

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The fact is it takes energy to do God’s will. What do you do when you run out of energy?

God suggests when we’re feeling uneasy, perhaps low on energy; we should be still and get quiet before him: “Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer” (Psalm 94:19 LB).

But many of us have trouble getting quiet. It’s as if we are afraid of silence; it makes us very uncomfortable. The moment we get in the car, the radio or CD player goes on. The moment we get home, the TV goes on.

Yet, God, in a sense, says, “If you want to lower your stress, it’s as simple as this: Shut up. Be silent. Stop talking and start listening.”

I suggest that once a day you should go out in your backyard, sit down, and just be quiet. I’m not talking about reading your Bible. You ought to read your Bible every day, but I mean get alone for five minutes a day and be completely silent. Ask God a question, and then just sit and listen.

Sometimes we say, “God, I really need your guidance on this,” and then we get up and walk off. We don’t wait for an answer. Could it be the reason we never hear from God is we never listen?

Learn to take little mini-breaks during the day. When you feel your blood pressure rising, stop and say, “God, I want to tune in on you again. I want to focus in on you.” I’m not suggesting thirty minutes of meditation. I’m talking about fifteen or twenty seconds. Just little mini-breaks to stop and be quiet.

Why is this important? Because the race of life is tough and, quite honestly, it’s tough to live God’s plan for your life. It’s important to be still and know He is there.

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You can’t say you love Jesus Christ and be ashamed of Him at the same time. In Mark 8, Jesus’ words could be summarized this way: “If you’re ashamed of Me on earth, I’m going to be ashamed of you in heaven.” We need to publicly identify ourselves with Christ. That’s how we show our love for Him.

Jesus gave us two very powerful symbols that help us publicly declare we belong to God. The first one is Communion, which helps us identify with what Jesus Christ did for us:

• He saved us from the penalty of sin. Everything you’ve ever done wrong was paid for on the cross so you get to go free and forgiven.

• He saves us from the power of sin. He breaks its grip in our lives. He gives us a new power to be able to make changes so we’re not the same anymore. He can do new things in our lives that we always wanted to do but never thought we could do on our own.

• Eventually He saves us from the presence of sin in heaven where there will be no sin, no sorrow, no suffering, no pain, no grief. That’s good news.

What should my attitude be when I take the Lord’s Supper? Should I sit there feeling guilty, remembering all the wrong things I’ve done in my life? No. They’ve already been paid for by Jesus Christ and forgiven. When I take Communion, should I feel grief, thinking about all the torture and suffering that Jesus Christ went through for me? No. Because He didn’t stay dead; He came back to life.

So what should be my attitude when I take the Lord’s Supper? It should be the attitude of gratitude. Gratefulness for all that God has done. That God loves me so much He sent Jesus to save me from my sins. We can be grateful because we are a forgiven people.

As we take Communion we do several things. We publicly identify our faith in Christ. We publicly identify our love for Christ. We publicly state that we want to be closer to Christ.

When you participate in the Lord’s Supper, you worship God because it requires you to “examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe” (1 Corinthians 11:28 MSG).

Jesus’ death and resurrection paid for our sins.

There have been a lot of great religious teachers throughout history. They’ve all had good things to say, but what makes Jesus different from every other religious teacher throughout history is the fact that He died and rose again.

That’s of critical importance because it’s not the life of Jesus that saves you; it’s not the teachings of Jesus that save you; it’s His death and resurrection that open the door for your salvation.

Jesus died for your sins. The Bible says we’ve all blown it. We’ve all made mistakes. None of us is perfect. That’s pretty obvious; I don’t measure up to my own standards, much less God’s. We have all sinned.

The Bible says that justice demands punishment. If you do the crime, you pay the time. If you break the law, you pay the fine. If you get caught speeding, you get a ticket. If you break God’s laws, you pay God’s penalty and, according to the Bible, “The wages [for our] sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 NLT).

In other words, somebody has to pay for all the things you’ve done wrong in life: either you pay or somebody else pays for you. And this is where God says, “I’ll do it!” He steps up to the plate. Jesus Christ is sent to earth—God in human form—and He says, in effect, “I will pay for your sins.”

Here’s the good news: Everything you’ve ever done wrong, everything you’re ever going to do wrong, things you haven’t even thought of yet, all those sins have already been paid for by Jesus Christ as He died on the cross: “Through the blood of His Son, we are set free from our sins. God forgives our failures because of His overflowing kindness” (Ephesians 1:7 GWT).

When Jesus died on the cross for you, it showed two things:

Jesus on Cross

1. It showed how much your forgiveness cost. The highest price you can pay for anything is to give your life for it. And that’s what Jesus did. He gave His blood. He gave His life. It was extremely expensive. Grace is free but it is not cheap. It cost Jesus His life, but He paid for your sins.

2. It shows how much God values you. It shows how much you matter to God. Jesus died for you on the cross. It shows the highest price possibly to be paid was giving a life.

How much are you worth? Jesus says, with His arms stretched out on the cross,

“This much I’m willing to die for you.”

You may think that you’re worthless because of things you’ve done wrong. But Jesus says,

“No. You’re priceless. And I’m willing to give My life in order to pay for your sins.”

i Love you LORD!..

by Rick Warren

“But as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress” (Psalm 59:16 NLT).

We all want our relationships to be characterized by persistence and self-sacrifice. But we can never do that on our own. The kind of love we long to show others is only found in a growing relationship with God. Without God’s power in our lives, our love will run out.

You don’t build that kind of relationship with God—one that will help you love others when you want to give up—by accident. You do it through habits.

Here are three habits that will help you grow in your relationship with God.

1. A daily quiet time. Let God talk to you through the Bible and through prayer. Nothing will help your life more. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “This is the reason we never lose heart. Our body does suffer wear and tear, but every day the inward man receives fresh strength” (PH). Outwardly our body suffers wear and tear, but spiritually we can be renewed every day by spending time alone with God. It’s not hard. Read through a chapter of the Bible, meditate on it, and talk with God about what’s going on in your life.

2. Small group. The Bible says in Hebrews 10:25, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another…” (NIV). You need to spend time with other believers. I hope you have a church family. Be a part of whatever mechanism they have to connect you with a small group, whether that’s a Sunday School or off-campus small group. You need the prayer support and encouragement of other believers. A Christian without a small group is an orphan.

3. Worship through song. Psalm 59:16 says, “I will sing about your strength, my God, and I will celebrate because of your love” (CEV). Singing builds you up. The singing time at your church isn’t just the warm-up act; it’s just as important as the message. Don’t miss it this weekend. Also, put some worship music on your iPod or MP3 player this week and don’t be afraid to sing along. It will recharge your soul and give you the God-given strength to love others.