Category: Sister Judy (Page 2 of 280)

Let us not resent the times of trouble when they come, but to know that God in His love is using them to help us become more like Him and knows the best means. He gets our attention when we are hurting and wants our dependence to be on Him, rather than searching for ways to get out from under our situations right now! Instead, it is to be a listening time to surrender to the Lord and learn the benefit of the struggles we are experiencing. He has so much to teach us, and it helps if we are willing students who yield to Him.

The enemy is sure to tell us that God is against us or has forgotten us, and makes us question why we are holding on to Him. But rather than complain, we need to listen to the Lord and trust Him, even if we don’t fully understand the reasons at the time. I was reading what Thomas Brooks had to say about the benefits to be gained from our afflictions including: clear sight of our sins, softening of our hearts, removal of worldly influence, less pride and greater humility, growth in holiness, God revealed to us, thoughts fixed on eternity, and equipping us to help others who have troubles. That is a lot of pluses, and hopefully we are led to trust God’s power and to know it is in His love that we go through afflictions. He is not out to destroy us, but to free us. We may not love what we have to go through, but let us love what results from His refining in our lives.

But young people today miss out and don’t physically relate with others. One young man talked to me of how excited he was to have friends to the lake, and yet he had never met them in person, only online; and of course, people can show only the best parts of themselves that way. As many have also found out, people can act out rudely online and cancel you if they don’t agree. How can we learn to truly communicate or have empathy and caring for one another if we never take the time to really connect?

Carr and Moore talked about AI and how it gives us information quickly and efficiently, but who is doing the doing the editorial function of choosing which pieces of content people will see? A Roman Catholic group created Father Justin, an AI priest, who quickly became a heretic and suggested using Gatorade in baptisms. He was defrocked, even though he wasn’t real.

Familiar to most of us is Jim Elliot, whose brief life among the Auca Indians of Ecuador ended with his martyrdom, along with four other fellow missionaries. He had written in his journal, “God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life that I may burn up for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you Lord Jesus” His life was short, for he died at only 29 years of age, but he considered the salvation of the lost more important than his comfort or his very life. His wife Elisabeth wrote a biography of her husband and then carried on his work with the very people who had murdered her husband.  

I read of others who made sacrifices and took the risk to go where they felt called by God. C.T. Studd was considered the best English athlete of his day. He experienced a renewal of his faith at a crusade and felt called to Africa as an evangelist. Then there was Mary Slessor, a worker in a textile factory in Scotland who, when she came to faith, became active in street ministry, witnessing wherever she went. God laid a burden on her heart to go to Nigeria, to a bloody, cannibalistic, savage tribe. Later she built a mission house, a school and a church, rescued orphans and even adopted some of them. God also used her for intervening in tribal affairs and she became their tribal mediator. Then there was William Carey, a cobbler: when he came to the Lord, he became a lay preacher with a passion for world missions. He went to India and started a school and a college. He mastered many languages and translated the Bible into six of the languages and parts of the Bible into twenty-nine others.

The list could go on and on, of those who took a step of faith and risked their lives. They didn’t put limits on what God could do through them. For us also, the ultimate sacrifice is to give our whole selves to God. Who knows what He will do through us?!

Scripture verifies importance of relationships, for Paul writes in Romans 12 that when we know the Lord, we become members of the One body in Christ, and individually members of one another. We are to live in harmony with one another, and rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. That takes relationship! The kind of friends we have is very vital, as we share interests and hopefully godly attitudes. I find that where I am weak, a friend may be strong, and as wise King Solomon said in Prov. 27:17, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”

Moore shares how we need to have friends who can give us godly counsel. They can build us up and help us discern what God is saying to us. I know when I e-mail a certain friend, she will speak truth and not tell me what my flesh may want to hear. In each church we have been, the Lord has always seemed to give me close friends that have the prophet gift or the exhorter gift to encourage me, but to also show me the way of truth. Friends can make us better, and they are gifts to us from the Lord. They can stand with us when we go through hard times and point us always to the Lord. King David had Jonathan as a close friend who sacrificed for him, even to the point of the throne.

Most importantly of all, may Jesus be our best friend! He calls us friends if we do what He tells us to do. (John 15:14)

Challenge for today: Give time for your most important Friend (Jesus), and also for Christian friendships He brings into your life.