Tag: sacrifice

By Pastor Andrew Farland

Our God is a God of redemption.

He saves us from ourselves.

Before Jesus was crucified, Peter denied Christ three times. Peter was the same guy who commanded God to come out of the boat and walk on water. It was Peter who said, “I will never turn away from you even if everyone else does.” He was full of zeal, and yet Christ had to teach him a couple of different lessons.

The number one lesson Peter had to learn is:

Your own zeal can’t save you. Your own power can’t save you. You need the power of Christ, the redemption of Jesus.

Peter denied Christ three times, but then Peter started Jesus’s church and lead 3,000 people back to Christ on Pentecost.

You see, whatever you’ve done can be forgiven.

But God needs to teach us a lesson that we are not supposed to work out of our own sufficiency. We can’t do it on our own. We need to rely on God.

We are not redeemed by our power and might, but by His spirit.

Rely on the spirit of Christ inside. God can redeem us, grow us, and He can forgive us.

God is the one who shows us that He is the source of power in our lives.

Every time we go through something different; we need to rely on him because no two situations and no two battles are the same. We need to rely on God who knows the exact strategy for what we’re going through.

Rely on God for your sufficiency, not on yourself.

Zechariah 4:6
So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.

Be encouraged today because God is with you.

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.