Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.” – Hebrews 6:10

Know this for certain – no good work that you do for the Lord ever goes forgotten, unappreciated, or wasted! It doesn’t matter if any other person ever knows about the good that you do for others. It doesn’t matter if nobody ever remembers to say “thank you”. God knows what you do. He knows why you do it. He will bless and reward you for it.

God is perfectly just, perfectly wise, ever-present, and all-knowing. So, He knows. No matter how invisible your efforts, God knows. No matter how behind the scenes, anonymous, or even misconstrued by others, God knows. God will reward you in heaven for the faithful work you do to glorify Him. He will bless you for the love you have demonstrated in His name.

With that worry out of the way, feel free to love and serve others extravagantly and sacrificially. Work hard in the knowledge that God appreciates your efforts. Pour out your life in the knowledge that He will one day declare, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Don’t hold back. #FollowJesus

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food” – Hebrews 5:12

Hopefully this isn’t true for you! However, it’s certainly worth doing a little honest self-assessment…

Are you actively growing in your knowledge and understanding of the Bible? Are you hungry to learn even more and go even deeper? Are you taking specific steps to do exactly that? Are you more confident about your understanding of the message and teachings of Jesus than you were a year ago?

Are you more like Jesus than you were a year ago? More loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled?

Are you currently teaching at least one other person about Jesus, the Bible, and how to follow Jesus?

If your answers to these questions are all yes, then keep up the good work! God is going to bless you in many wonderful ways as you grow ever closer to Him! If some or all of your answers are no, what are you going to do to change that? Living things grow and you’ve been given new life in Jesus Christ. You need to grow because you’re missing out on many of the sweetest blessings and joys of Christian life.

How will you grow in community with other believers? How will you serve God in new or more sacrificial ways? How will you be more faithful in sharing your hope in Christ with others? What new (or renewed) personal spiritual habits will you develop? How will you deepen your devotion to worship? These are the elements of Five to Thrive and if you pursue them, you will experience the growth that God expects and equips you to have. #FollowJesus

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” – Hebrews 4:16

IF Jesus is your Lord and Savior, then this invitation, encouragement, and exhortation is for YOU! You can pray confidently, trusting that God’s grace and mercy are available to meet your needs. If you’ve entrusted your life to Jesus, then earlier verses in chapter 4 explain that Jesus is your great high priest. He represents you before God, reconciling you to your Father in Heaven. Jesus is your perfect high priest because He understands EVERY temptation you battle.

Jesus entered our world, taking on a human body and nature. After He did, Jesus experienced unimaginably severe temptations, resisting them all without ever sinning. While we might imagine that would separate us in our sin from Him in His perfection, it actually enables Him to truly understand our struggles and even our failures. So Jesus, the perfect priest, is your priest. He sees everything about you. He understands you perfectly. And He intercedes on your behalf anyway!

What does that mean? Exactly what this verses says. If Jesus is your Lord, you don’t need to be afraid to pray to God for what you need. You don’t need to be afraid He ‘ll be angry that you’re bothering Him. You don’t need to worry that He’ll laugh at you, make fun of you, or tell you to get lost. You don’t have to wonder whether God cares about your requests. In Christ, you have an extraordinary privilege! You can confidently approach God in prayer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, asking God boldly for the grace and mercy you need in any moment.

In Christ, God IS listening to your prayers. He is delighted to give you grace and mercy. He loves when you come to Him with your needs. And He will respond in whatever way is best. So confidently pray to God and faithfully #FollowJesus

“Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”
– Psalm 39:5

What King David writes here may not seem cheery to think about, but it’s vital to understand! To human beings, a lifetime certainly feels like a long time, because it’s what we see with our eyes and feel in our bodies. 70 years. 80. 100. It feels like forever because it’s all we know. But compared to eternity, those decades will pass in the blink of an eye! Understanding this truth will set you free. How?

By freeing you from the tyranny of the urgent to invest in the eternal. By freeing you from wasting your life trying to pile up fame, fortune, and accomplishments that will soon be swept away by the sands of time. By helping you understand how to participate in what is eternal through Jesus Christ. The precious invitation of Jesus is to believe in Him and follow Him into eternal life. Through faith in Christ, every believer gains life that will never end.

Though our brief earthly life will inevitably be over in a matter of a few years (unless Jesus returns first), our eternal life with Him will last forever. The path of wisdom is to not over-emphasize this brief earthly life but to invest in your eternal life. In Matthew 6, Jesus invites you to invest your time, energy, health, and wealth into building God’s Kingdom because that piles up treasure in Heaven that will last forever. The eternal rewards you gain as you make disciples, proclaim Jesus, and love others in His name are infinitely greater than whatever earthly rewards you might amass by building your own personal kingdom on earth.

Where are you investing your energy, time, talent, and treasure? On the earth that you will leave behind in a matter of years? Or in the eternity you will enjoy with Christ for millions upon millions of years? Understand how short the life that you know is compared to the life that you already have in Jesus Christ. Then live your earthly life accordingly, devoting everything to building God’s Kingdom. #FollowJesus

“Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
your judgments are like the great deep;
man and beast you save, O Lord.”
– Psalm 36:5-6

Do you ever stop to think about just how BIG God’s character is? You should! He isn’t like us. Our good features have their limits. His don’t. That’s what the psalmist is exploring here. God’s love, faithfulness, righteousness, and justice simply have no limit. NONE! Here they are compared to the biggest things the writer could imagine…

• God’s perfect loyal, steadfast, faithful love stretches to the stars and beyond!
• God’s perfect faithfulness in all things wraps around the earth like the clouds in the sky!
• God’s perfect righteousness extends higher than the highest, most impassible mountain!
• God’s perfect justice toward all of His Creation goes unimaginably, endlessly deeper than we can understand!

Our God really is an awesome God. Don’t just, “yeah, yeah, I know” this glorious truth today!!! Stop and meditate on God. His glory. His majesty. His love. His faithfulness. His righteousness. His justice. How would you express these truths? To what would you compare them? Think about these things and delight in the Lord wherever you may be reading this. #FollowJesus