Tag: resurrection

By Pastor Andrew Farland

God can reach you at the lowest possible place, even in your deepest sorrow, with no hope in sight.

I had an experience in Rwanda that showed this.

We were working with a bunch of kids who wanted to explore the ministry.

When we split into teams, my team had five people including me. Right away, one boy and one girl left us, and we became a team of three. We still wanted to go door to door that morning to pray with people and for them.

The team knocked on the first and second doors, and we continued making our way down the street. We finally arrived at the last door on the end of the street. A young girl invited them in. Even with our translator helping, there wasn’t much talking. Everyone prayed together, and we left.

The next day, we went back to the same community. Our translator ran up to us, saying, “You’re not going to believe what happened. It’s crazy!”

“Tell us!” I said. “We love to be encouraged!”

“Remember the last house at the end of the street?” asked our translator. “The night before you came, the lady you prayed with put a rope around the top of the beam in her ceiling, and laid the noose around her neck.

She heard a voice say, “Don’t kill yourself; help is on the way.”

The translator continued. “Then she had a vision of three white people coming to pray for her. But wait, It gets crazier. In the vision, she saw your faces — one girl, and two boys — coming to the door.”

This story illustrates that you might be at the end of the road and at the end of your rope, ready to give up.

But don’t.

God is there, putting the right people in place to help you. God did this in Rwanda for the woman who contemplated suicide.

He gave her a vision of three white people who would come and pray with her. He sent away two members of the five-member team so only the envisioned prayer warriors would be left. Everything fit perfectly in God’s plan. He made it so.

You see, God shows us that there ways where there are no ways. Life and hope exist where there is death and hopelessness.

We discovered on our next trip to the area that all three of the lady’s prayer requests had been answered.

God will help you with yours!

Isaiah 42:13
“For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

Be encouraged today because God is with you.

By Pastor Andrew Farland

If you’ve ever been let down by someone in your life, letting go and letting God take care of things can seem hard to do.

You may be asking, “Is God really capable of being in control of my life, and is He able to help me when I need it?”

The answer lies in Job 38, where God reveals his presence and power to Job by commanding the oceans:

“This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt.” [Job 38:11]

God tells Job that He’s in control of the boundaries of the waters. Think about this for a moment. Water covers two-thirds of our planet, and the remaining third island. Imagine what would happen if the oceans had no boundaries.

The oceans would spill out and cover not just the shoreline, but the entire Earth. The small amount of land we have would be covered with 6,000 feet of water.

Fortunately, God established boundaries that protect us. God in is control of everything on Earth and in the celestial sky as well.

The giant traveling star Arcturus is the brightest star in the Ursa Major constellation, and it’s the 4th brightest in the northern sky. It’s thirty times bigger than our sun. The Bear Guardian, as Arcturis is also known, is constantly on the move, barreling along at a brisk 4,200 mph right this minute.

That’s a lot of horsepowers. Imagine God asking Job if he’d like to drive that monster truck. One stomp on the gas pedal, and the beast would be out of control. But God’s got this. He shows His ability to control and manage a massive and powerful star like Arcturis.

He is on top of things.

Like Job, many of us wonder if God can really help us. So many times we doubt that God cares or can even bring us through a hard time.

Maybe you’re struggling with believing God for your future. God shows us daily that he really can help us. He cares, and He can do it.

After all, He holds back the waters every day. The waves cannot increase or go over a certain size, nor may they exceed their boundaries. God guides Arcturus through its paces in the night sky.

He does all of this and more, so of course, God is capable of helping us when we need it.

Jeremiah 32:37
“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?”

Be encouraged today because God is with you.

By Pastor Andrew Farland

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were three Jewish boys who lived under the tyrannical rule a long time ago.

The ruler commanded them to bow down to a large statue of himself, but the three boys refused even though it was customary to show loyalty to the ruler in this way.

Furious with their show of disrespect, the ruler commanded his servants to stoke a fiery furnace until it burned seven times hotter than usual.

Then he sent the boys into the fire. Miraculously, they were not burned.

The book of Isaiah tells us that with faith in God, we may go into the fire but not be burned, and we can go into deep waters but not be drowned.

It was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s faith that got them out of the fire safely. It was, however, that same faith that brought them to the fire in the first place.

That’s no easy thing to hear, but Christians have no promise that the challenges they will face will be easy.

God uses your faith not to punish you, but to show you its value.

He provides us with plenty of examples of faith’s value, too. God drew Ezekiel to the Valley of Dry Bones to prophesy the value of life. God drew people to the parched lands to hear and learn about prosperity. Time after time in the Bible, God shows us repeatedly that faith always overcomes fear.

If you’re a believer, God will call you to those scary and barren places.

You can expect that your faith will lead you there, but know that that same faith will also save you in your time of need.

Isaiah 43:2 (NIV)
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

Be encouraged today because God is with you.

By Pastor Andrew Farland

The longer you go without dealing with conflict, the harder it’s going to be to repair your relationship.

This is why Jesus instructs us in Matthew 18 to go to someone right away when that person sins against us.

15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.

The Bible says don’t let the sun go down on your anger.

What does that mean?

It means that you must take care of anger right away; don’t let your anger fester. God wants us to address problems right away to help us to save and preserve our relationships with each other.

I know firsthand how hard that request can be.

There was a time that I had a falling out with someone. We had a miscommunication, and as a result, I didn’t say anything for three months. During that time I started to build a case against the other person. This case was based on imagination and fabrication; never was it founded on truth.

The other person was fine and thought nothing was wrong between us.

But I allowed the lie I believed to continue for three months.

The anger you don’t deal with right away festers, and the enemy works on your mind, using that venom against you. He uses your rage to poison you!

That enemy wanted me to preserve the lie I had been telling myself. He is an accuser and an instigator of lies. He will plant seeds in our minds that God doesn’t love us or we are not good enough for God.

Soon the seed he plants will grow like a weed with long and far-reaching roots, The weed blossoms quickly, and it soon blocks out everything else from your mind. You’ll begin to think the other person wronged you and deserve punishment. Maybe you begin to think you should pull your affection from them.

God tells us to go to the person and clear up the miscommunication as soon as you realize there is an offense. Communicate in person, not in a text message or What’s App post that can be easily misconstrued. You must see their body language, and they must see yours.

If you can’t be there, call them. As a last resort, text.

The truth is far better than the stories with which we try to satisfy ourselves. The sooner we address our anger, the better because it is the truth that shall set us free.

John 8:32 (NIV)
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Be encouraged today because God is with you.