Monday, May 27, 2019

It's Time For a Faith-Lift

Read: Mark 9:17-29 and 1 Peter 5:6-11

From celebrities to everyday people like you and I, dissatisfaction abounds in many areas of our lives including the area of physical appearance. 

Unfortunately, many focus on physical appearance and go to great lengths to reconfigure themselves through plastic surgery when what they really need in many cases is a faith-lift instead of a face-lift. 

The same is true about issues of anxiety, depression, and the like. Some people of faith may rely only on the medicine prescribed to them when they also need to truly consider and turn to God and His Word for faith-lift. While there is a place for medicine in some cases,  we also need a regular dosage God's Word, prayer, and the encourage of The Holy Spirit to completely heal from a given battle with these things. 

There are times when we're really down or depressed. Most of the time when we're going through things like this in our daily lives, it's our own thinking or our wrong self-image that gets us messed-up or off-track. We fail to gauge things through God's filters and standards instead of our own. Our faith in God and ourselves needs a "lift" and our attitudes, thoughts, and actions need a "tuck." In other words, they need to be tucked away permanently. We need to see ourselves as God sees us, which is through Jesus Christ His Son who loves us with an everlasting love. We also need to believe that Jesus Christ can do miraculous things in our lives.

Monday, May 20, 2019

Faith, Mountains, and Molehills.

Read Matthew 17:20, 1 Peter 5:6-7, Isaiah 41:10, Matthew 6:27–28, Matthew 6:31, and Matthew 6:34

There's the old saying you might be familiar with that is, "Making mountains out of a molehills".  

Unfortunately, we as people of faith who know God's truth (or should), can still fulfill this old saying instead of fulfilling God's Word by responding in faith.

Due to our fear, doubt, forgetting the basic tools God has given us, as well as being guilty of overthinking, we can often create our own mountains and obstacles where there are none. Or, we can take the problems and obstacles at hand and make them far larger than they really are. 

Instead of responding in faith, we can go straight to fear, doubt, anxiety and more which always clouds our vision of God's truth.

In contrast, God's Word reminds us that our faith can move mountains. (Read Matthew 17:20)
The question is, will we allow The Holy Spirit and The Word of God to help us respond more often in faith rather than in fear and doubt?

Will we turn to God's Word and God Himself through prayer first instead of putting Him second while we get stuck in the thoughts of our own heads as well as our emotions? 

Will we strive to turn to God, the wisdom of His Word, the help of His Holy Spirit, Prayer, and Godly counsel more often during the times of problems and obstacles rather than our own thoughts, feelings, and limited wisdom? 

Whether our troubles are mountain sized or molehill sized, let us pray for one another that we'll turn to God in faith first and always and not give into our fears and doubts.

Let's strive to stop living the old life and really ask for God's help to walk in new life every day, in Jesus name.

Your Brother and Servant in Christ,

Randolph Koch

Monday, May 13, 2019

The Great I AM Is With You!

Read Exodus 3:13-15, Mark 8:29, and Matthew 16:15

In Holiness and Great Power God spoke these words about Who He IS... "I AM WHO I Am.". (Exodus 3:13-15)

God is the Great I AM that generations have worshiped and revered! He is The One true God Who is beyond time and space. He’s always been…He has no beginning and no end. He simply...IS!
Flash forward to the New Testament where Jesus stated He was the I AM and Jesus asked on multiple occasions, "Who do you say that I Am?" (Mark 8:29 and Matthew 16:15)

This question is vital to you and I as Who He His and how we view Him should collide with and change our world view including our sense of identity as our identity ought to be ground in The Great I AM!

You and I need to also understand that Jesus is the same I AM being fully God Who chose to come in the flesh to dwell among us. 

No matter what you're facing right now, pause for a moment and remember that if you're in Christ, You walk with The Great I AM...and, He is with you always!  

Your Brother and Servant In Christ,

Randolph Koch

Wednesday, May 08, 2019

Wait On The Lord...No Really...Wait On The Lord.

Read Isaiah 40:31 ESV and Matthew 6:33-34.

Waiting. This isn't something most of us in our day and age or very good at especially when we want something now.  

In comparison, we will wait in a long line for hours for the latest piece of technology, a concert, or movie...yet, we'll continually check our watches or phones for the time if the pastor's message goes longer than 30 minutes during what is the extent of many people's mostly once-a-week spiritual activity. 

We also often get impatient when we drive, are pulling out of the church parking lot, standing in the grocery store check-out line, or at the local department of motor vehicles...ok...maybe that list is just about me as I know "no one else" struggles with waiting patiently.  Or, maybe that list is what I've heard "a friend" experiences. ;-) 

We also get impatient when our plans or next purchase of one thing or another doesn't move along as fast as we want...and many times that gets us in trouble. Why? Because we often don't include God in our plans or purchases and we forge ahead sometimes foolishly toward something that wasn't God's plan for us and yet...we wonder why our plans are meeting resistance or fail?!

It becomes clear that He didn't want that plan for us and we can't expect Him to bless what is not His Will...and if it's related to a foolish purchase, we can't expect Him to bless us if we go into debt for something we really didn't need.