BELIEVE: Week 2 “How do I really know God cares?”
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 2: God is Personal God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
A few weeks ago we observed as a nation the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks on the twin towers, the Pentagon, and those that aborted another attack in Pennsylvania. The senseless loss of life caused by the terrorists was overshadowed by the heroism of every-day Americans stepping up to serve fellow human beings. Passengers on a plane sacrificed their life to prevent another target from being struck. Hundreds of first responders hustled up the stairs of the twin towers to rescue those trapped by the fires as hundreds rushed down. People who didn’t know each other paused to help someone get out safely. Strangers gave up their life for strangers. Why? Because they cared.
They were willing to put their life on the line to care for the life of another.
How much greater has God done the same for us.
If there is ever a question if God cares for you or personally has a vested interest in you, simply consider this:
Romans 8:31-32 “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
In logic, it’s the argument from the greater to the lesser.
If a bulldozer can move a 10-ton rock, it can also move a 5-ton rock.
If God cared about you to give up his only Son for the benefit of your salvation, he also cares for you enough to care for your daily needs.
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is the greatest example of God’s love and care for you.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
So as we wrap up the week, remember the key truths from this week:
- God always gives you what is good, even if it’s not what you want.
- God’s plan is always perfect, even if it’s not my preference.
- God cares about me, even when I don’t think he does.
God is a personal God who loves you deeply and cares for you immensely!
Apply: Perhaps write your favorite verse or the summary of the key points on a card and put them in a place to remind you when you feel like God doesn’t care.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for caring enough to secure my salvation in Jesus. Knowing you cared enough to have me in heaven gives me confidence you will care enough to give me what is good every day. AMEN.
PS: I would like to start a new segment for the daily devotions and use Friday’s to address a question you the reader may have or address a current event of the week from a Biblical perspective. Please feel free to email me at pastor@crossandcrowntx.com to share a thought or topic you’d like to have a devotion written for or about. Thanks! God bless!
BELIEVE Week 2: I don’t think God cares.
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 2: God is Personal God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
“You don’t care about me!”
I think every parent who has earned their badge as parent has heard their child say this at least at one point in their life. Usually this phrase comes out when a child is sent to bed early as discipline, car keys are taken away from a teenager, or a middle school daughter isn’t allowed to go out on a date with a boy you don’t even know.
Their perception? You as a parent don’t care about them.
Translation… “You didn’t give me what I wanted and therefore I conclude you don’t care about me.”
Which is exactly the opposite, right?
You care enough to discipline.
You care enough to keep your teenager safe.
You care enough to know who is hanging out with your kids.
You care because you love your kids more than they will ever know.
You care even when your kids don’t think you do. Because that’s what loving parents do for their kids.
The same is true for our loving God.
He cares about us, even when we don’t think he does.
We can be like the child who THINKS God doesn’t care because we don’t get what we want from God, but in reality God’s perspective is giving us what we need and showing us that he cares.
I get that sometimes it feels like God doesn’t care. When we feel all alone. When we fear the future because the present is changing. When we are hurting and it seems like those that should care don’t.
God does care about you, even when you don’t think he does.
How do I know? Consider these promises:
God says, “Give your worries and cares to me. Don’t try to carry them on your own.”
1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
God says, “I will never abandon you. I am always there, even if it feels like I am not.”
Romans 8:38-39 I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God says, “I care about you enough to give you always what is best for you.”
James 1:16-17 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters, Every good and perfect fit is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shift shadows.
There will be a next time it feels like God doesn’t care. But in the moment remember, God cares for you, even when you don’t think he does!
Apply: When have you felt like God didn’t care? As you look back, how did you realize God cared for you in that moment?
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for forgiving me when I question your care for me. Thank you for your love that always cares, even when I don’t think you are or realize you are. AMEN.
BELIEVE Week 2: Whose plan was that anyway?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 2: God is Personal God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
Are you a planner?
Are you a person that has your calendar scheduled, your goals defined, and your daily steps to execute it all? You are to be commended. I could use a bit more of that – simply to be a better steward of each of the days God has given to me.
How do you react when the ability to execute YOUR plan fails? Does your world fall apart when your plans fall apart?
I remember years ago a mom whose son was very good at baseball. He was a top player at the high school level and the mom loved watching him play and was very proud of him. College scholarships were on the horizon and there was certainly potential in his skill to make the major leagues. Until…
He suffered a major break in his arm.
I remember interacting with the mom and her frustration not just at the situation but at God were evident. How could God kill her son’s potential? Why did this have to happen when he had such great ability and potential?
I don’t know. But I do know this:
God’s plan is always perfect, but not always my preference.
I lost track of this family, but professional baseball was not God’s plan for his life.
When our plans change it is frustrating and challenging, but when I realize the change in plans was God’s way of caring for me, I will react very differently.
Instead of getting mad at God, I will be glad he changed things for my good.
I am sure it wasn’t in Jeremiah’s life-plan to spend 70 years in captivity in the nation fo Babylon. No one scrips their life goals and says, “I want to spend 70 years of my life in prison, without freedom and at the whims of other people.” At least I never would.
However, even in the hard exile into Babylon, the Lord spoke through Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 29:10-11 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Captivity wasn’t the end for Israel. It wasn’t the end to God’s promises. It wasn’t the end to God’s faithfulness. In fact, it was the next step for God to bring blessing to them in the future and to bring THE Blessing from them into the future.
While captivity in Babylon wasn’t their choice, perhaps one of the blessings was the influence of the LORD in that region. Tradition says the wisemen who visited little boy Jesus were spiritual descendants of David and other faithful Jews in Babylon…500 plus years earlier.
When God’s Spirit enables me to trust that God always gives what is good, even when it isn’t what I need, I can also trust him that his plan for my life is perfect, even if it is not my preference.
Has God changed your plans recently? Just remember and look for God to bring blessing in his time and way…knowing that he changed the plans to “prosper you, to give you hope and a future.”
Apply: When has God changed your plans? What was the blessing that came from it?
Prayer: My times are in your hands, o Lord. Help me to always trust that with my plans in your hands, you always love and care for me and execute your plans to give me hope and a future. AMEN.
BELIEVE: Do You Believe God Will Always Give You What Is Good?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 2: God is Personal God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
Do you believe God will always give you what is good?
It’s hard to fully trust that, isn’t it?
Is cancer good?
Is CoVid good?
Is losing a job good?
Is losing a loved one good?
It’s hard right? Especially when we fall for the lie that Satan plants within us that “God doesn’t care about me when I don’t get what I want or God doesn’t do what I want him to do.”
On the surface, none of these appears to be good, nor is it something I would WANT for myself.
So, will I trust that God will always give my what is GOOD, even if it not what I WANT?
To trust this, I have to rely on God’s promises and his eternal track record. Only then can I call something “good” when it appears so bad.
First, a promise from Psalm 23:1,6
“The Lord is my shepherd…Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.”
A shepherd, true shepherd, will always want what is best for his sheep. He will lay down his life for his sheep. He will go after the lost sheep that wandered from the flock. He will ensure his sheep are safely in the pen to protect them from harmful predators. He will call each of them by name. Why? Because he has a relationship with each one. Each one has a place in the shepherd’s heart. So the Good Shepherd, Jesus promises, “goodness and love will follow you all the days of your life.” I will let go of my definition of good, and know that God’s definition and exhibition of good is always from his heart of love for me personally, and therefore good.
Second, a promise from Psalm 139:7-8
Where can I go from your Spirit?…If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths you are there.
There is nowhere on this planet where God’s Spirit will not be. Sometimes it is hard to accept what is happening in life because we feel that God has abandoned us. Just when life gets difficult, our perception is that we have to face it all alone. We perhaps even cry out, “God where are you?” In those moments God whispers, “I am here with you.” When we know our loving heavenly Father is with us, we can always be confident he is there to do what is best for us.
Third, a promise from Psalm 139:13
You created my inmost being…you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Have you ever spent weeks putting a puzzle together? Spent weeks assembling computer code to write a working program? Or orchestrated the design and construction of a project. When we spend time putting something together, we know it so well as we are aware of every component that makes it up. In order for the mechanism to keep going we must have a deep concern for every part of the whole process.
God knit each of our cells together in our mothers’ womb. Would he not care for each part that makes you, you? Of course he would! He cares for the healthy cells as well as the unhealthy. He wants you to succeed at the purpose for which he created you…give glory to God.
The list can go on, but here are three short reminders to teach us that in life God will always give us what is GOOD, not always what I want.
Apply: Journal on an event that you didn’t think was good. How DID God turn it for your good?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for always giving me what is good, even when it’s not always what I want!
BELIEVE: Does God Care?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 2: God is Personal God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
Sometimes I don’t think he does.
Just glance through the headlines this week:
“Christians on edge in Afghanistan”
“75 dogs die in fire in Georgetown”
“Three die in train derailment in Montana”
“Covid cases continue to affect millions”
And the list goes on.
These headlines may cause us to pause and ask, “God where are you?” “Do you care?”
But it becomes more personal when my life is challenged.
I or someone I love gets CoVid.
I get in a car accident.
I get a serious medical diagnosis.
I lose a loved one.
Does God care about…me?
This is where it gets personal. When hard or challenging events occur in my life, it is tempting and often times reality that I blame God. I make him the cause of all my hardship. I question God. I wonder if he loves me or even knows what I am going through. I abandon God. After all, these situations seem to indicate that God has abandoned me. My thinking leads me to wondering, “Why should I stay with you God if you leave me when I need you most.”
Here’s the irony. When life is going well and I have what I want and life is going the way I want it to, God is perhaps a secondary thought. But the moment that life brings challenges, I believe God is personally responsible and involved in my life…and blame him for causing trouble.
So which is it.
The truth is God is a personal God who loves and cares for you very much. We will explore how we know that this week.
Here is the other truth…Satan is a liar and he gets us to believe lies about God and misjudge how much God cares for us. How so? Here’s how I would summarize it:
Satan leads me to believe this lie: “God doesn’t care about me when I don’t get what I want, or God doesn’t do what I want him to do.”
The problem? I think I can define and mandate HOW God should care for me. As a result when he doesn’t do what I think he should, I conclude, “God doesn’t care.”
For your day today, consider this:
Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Apply: When do you feel/think that God doesn’t care? Evaluate what led you to think that way.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for still caring for me, even when I think or feel that you don’t. AMEN.