Courage For Today

changed

You Can Be of Good Courage

Strength

“Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait on the Lord.” (Psalms 27:14)

As each of us goes through life, there are those unavoidable times when we look in the mirror and think God can’t use us or that we have nothing to offer.  Nothing could be farther from the truth to Him.  We can’t lose sight of the fact that our courage and faith is not based on title, education, or possessions.  In God’s eyes, it’s not who we are by virtue of what we have; rather, its whose we are by virtue of our relationship with God.

The best example I can think of is shown to us in Acts Chapter 4.  Peter and John were battling the religious establishment and stood firm against the wrath of the leaders.  We are shown how two ordinary, unschooled men were changed into life-changing representatives of our Lord.  It wasn’t a title or possessions that made Peter and John so courageous.  It was their time with Jesus and the relationship they had with Him that changed their lives and enabled them to touch the lives of others.

So, the question becomes, “how do we live our lives with the courage that Peter and John showed us in Acts, even if we feel like we have nothing to offer?”  Peter and John didn’t dwell on what they didn’t have and they didn’t concentrate on their prior failings.   It’s so easy to label ourselves, based on the past, and believe what we tell ourselves.  “I’m a failure.”  “I’m no good at this.”  “I’m not a very strong person.”  Once this label becomes part of you, then you begin to let that label control you.  Realize that there isn’t anything wrong with you.  You just need to decide how you want to be or what you want to do going forward and allow God to work in your life.

Don’t let your previous lack of courage become your present day reality.

Courage Thoughts for Today:

  1. How have I let my past failings control my present?
  2. What do I want to do or who do I want to be beginning today?
  3. What lies have I told myself that I will no longer believe starting today?

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Consistency in Your Christian Faith

Faith

I always love the Christmas Season.  Without a doubt, it is my favorite time of the year.  Everyone is usually more cheerful and giving.  Children are excited.  I even enjoy the hustle and bustle of busy shopping days and fighting over parking spaces.  There’s just something magical about Christmas.

As a young child, I couldn’t wait for Christmas to arrive.  I had Christmas with both Grandmother’s and then my parents.  At each stop, I got ready for another round of presents and goodies.  It just didn’t get any better than that.

I always enjoyed going to celebrate Christmas at my maternal Grandmothers house, even though I sometimes didn’t understand her Christmas decorating style.  As much as I enjoyed admiring  Christmas decorations and lights and ornaments, I never understood what my Grandmother saw in her particular artificial Christmas Tree that she showed off each and every year.

I’m probably showing my age here a little, but her particular Christmas Tree was solid Silver.  I hated it.  Christmas trees are supposed to be Green, not Silver.  It just didn’t look right, sitting in her big picture window.  I tried to endure the agony though because, as a child, I certainly didn’t want to jeopardize any presents that might be coming my way.

What really made the tree hard to love was the fact that she had this motorized Color Wheel, with a spotlight, shining through the colors on the wheel on to the tree. The color wheel was divided into four colors:  red, orange, green, and blue.  As the motorized Color Wheel turned round and round, the spotlight shined through the particular color on the color wheel.  The Wheel took about 30 seconds to make one revolution, so during that 30 seconds, the tree changed colors from red to orange to green to blue.  Yuck.  It was supposed to be green all the time, in my opinion.  It was as if the tree couldn’t make up its mind what color it wanted to be.

As I think about times in my life and how I lived my life as a Christian, I often times changed my “Christian Colors.”  At work, I might act one way.  At home, I might act a different way.  With certain friends, I might act still a different way.  I wasn’t always consistent.  I changed to fit the circumstance and, I believe, that is exactly what gives Christianity such a bad reputation to many in the world.  We’re not consistent.

I made a commitment many years ago to be consistent.  Now, I’m not perfect and certainly have not always lived up to that commitment, but I consistently pray for God’s strength to enable me to be a consistent witness to the world in everything I do.  I don’t want to be like my Grandmother’s Christmas Tree that changes from Red to Yellow to Green to Blue.  I want to be a consistently bright light in all that I do.

Are you consistent in your Christian Life, or are you ever changing “colors?”

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