Weekly Encouragement

Good Wednesday Everyone,

Weekly blessings to all.  This is a “short” week for many of us, but the same amount of work must be done.  Hang in there.  If you were away from work, I hope you enjoyed the day and finish your week well.  Do not forget tonight is Wednesday Night Fellowship.  Pizza is on our menu for tonight.  If you can, bring a dish and/or a dessert to pass.  Join us!  Join us!  JOIN US!!

Each Wednesday evening after dinner, we have enjoyed the discipleship video series, “Experiencing God”.  We just started.  This series is teaching us the truth about God’s will for you.  God has a specific yet complete plan for each of us.  And within God’s total plan there are daily callings, challenges, encounters, and tasks all involving interactions with people. When we are more aware and better prepared to this truth, we will hear God’s voice saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”  (Isaiah 31:21)  God’s way places you directly in the middle of His will.  It is never an accident nor fate, it is God’s way and God’s will for His child to be where they are, when they are, and with whomever they meet at that moment.  Every moment is divine and every divine moment matters.

Thank you for all your positive feedback in our current Job sermon series.  No one wants to deal with suffering and loss.  But suffering is real while we live in this worldly “tent” until we are called to our heavenly home.  Thus far, Job has suffered completely, and his present reality is one of pain, sorrow, and great physical and spiritual turmoil.  Job has been offered help by his friends who know him best and love him the most outside his immediate family.  But they cannot give Job the help or the comfort he needs.

So, what’s next?  What’s the expectation?  Where is the relief?  Do we suffer endlessly, needlessly?!?!, until we depart this earth?  In times of great difficulty, these are totally fair questions.  For the Christian, and in Job’s day, for the child of God, trials and tribulations are allowed so we can learn about who we are and who God is.

Nothing in this world and nothing we have is better than having God.  We can have health – but health is not as good as having God.  We can have wealth – but wealth is not as good as having God.  We can have comfort – but comfort is not as good as having God.  Job had all those things and much more – but Job needed God: ALL of God.  We “get all” of God in a two-step process through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Read the following carefully and prayerfully.

Job’s relationship with God then, can be equated to your relationship with Jesus Christ today.  Job by faith believes everything he can about God.  Certainly, we believe everything we can about God.  But our relationship with God must be more than knowledge.  In our relationship with Jesus Christ, we must love Him, and we also surrender to Him.  Job’s relationship with God has not gone “beyond” himself.  Think about it.  Job is being driven to love God and surrender to Him despite all Job’s tragedy.  Job is, as are you, of great value to God when you will surrender to Him.  Love is the first step in our relationship with God, and surrender is our second.

Loving God and surrendering to God are very difficult in times of great pain and innocent suffering.  This spiritual “coin” of one side being love with the second side being surrender empowers us to pay any price the world demands from us as Christians.  Job is learning and we must as well, without this priceless coin we are broke!!  Don’t we see this truth in the lives of non-believers?  They can’t afford peace.  They can’t buy joy.  They can’t purchase hope.  They can’t charge love.  They just suffer!!

Job is not “just” suffering.  Job is learning to love God and surrender to Him.  Today, we have so much more than Job.  Jesus Christ, God Himself came to perfect our relationship together.  Today, this moment: Do you love God; Have you surrendered to Him?  This will not remove nor prevent suffering in the “tent” you live in, but it will equip us to glorify God in all things.

These two-steps are lifelong and on-going as we remain with God.  God never lets us go.  God will never let Job go, and God will never let you go!!  This truth you have, and others want it so badly, “They just don’t know it yet.”  Today: pray for a name.  Love this name and surrender to whatever God tells you to do with it. 

In Christ Jesus,

Pastor Michael