“It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.” —Psalm 118:8

I have a friend who likes to ask, “How are you faithing today?” I love that because the definition of “faithing” is the actual practice of a faith; it’s not just the static belief systems that might be attached to our faith, but the dynamic actions, expressions, or movements of our faith. It’s trust in action!

Maybe you’ve heard the story of the man who was walking next to a cliff when he suddenly fell over the edge. Managing to grab a hold of a tree limb hanging from the cliff, desperation is heard in his cry for help. Hanging hundreds of feet off the ground, he pleads repeatedly, “God, please help me” before a voice from the heavens replies: “Do you believe in me?” “Yes, yes,” says the man. “Do you trust me?”, the voice asks. “Yes, please, just help me.” “Then, let go,” the voice commands. Anxiously, the man looks up and says, “Is there anyone else up there I can talk to?” This guy obviously wasn’t faithing very well.

In Isaiah 31, we see God calling His people to stop trusting in man and to begin faithing by trusting in Him during a season of uncertainty. Judah is facing the severe threat of Assyrian invasion, while King Hezekiah’s counselor has recommended that he establish an alliance with Egypt for protection against such a threat. Egypt had a notable stature of military might and collective strength, but their help would only be a false sense of security—for “The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit.”

The prophet Isaiah confronts Judah of two sins in particular. First being the sin of trusting in Egypt and their impressive resources, whose “chariots” were “many” and their “horsemen” were “very strong.” Secondly, they were rebuked for the sin of not looking “to the Holy One of Israel” for their salvation in such a time of crisis. How much better to have the heart of the psalmist in Psalm 20:7, when he said, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.”

Hezekiah’s response to the crisis in a secular approach rather than a spiritual approach would be incriminating. Leaning on human strength would be foolish, as God doesn’t need the help of earthly empires to bring about His wonders in our lives. There is no protection to be found in the mortal forces of Egypt. Trusting in the arm of flesh in a time of crisis will always leave us vulnerably deceived, exposed, and eventually disappointed. God longs to be our refuge, our protection, and our TRUST.

Isaiah assured Judah that “the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man.” Then we read in 2 Kings 19:35 how God simply sent the angel of the LORD and put to death 185,000 Assyrians in one night! It was a victory that had nothing to do with the arm of flesh or the sword of man. God was more than able to protect Judah and Jerusalem. The next thing it says is that the King of Assyria “broke camp and withdrew.” I love that imagery as it pertains to spiritual warfare in our lives.

You want to know how to break the camp of the enemy and put your spiritual nemesis to flight? James put it this way: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Sometimes this submitting and resisting can be interpreted as a two-step process, but I don’t think that’s the proper implication. I believe that both happen synchronously when we do one thing: TRUST in the LORD over our own understanding. Think about that as you seek to abide in Him this week.

PRAYER

Lord, help us to serve you by “faithing” well during seasons of duress in our lives, to not just give you mental assent in our beliefs, but to truly let go of our inhibitions and fully trust that You will surely take care of us in these times. May that trust lead us into appropriate faith in action in the daily grind of our lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Questions for personal reflection, small group discussion, or dinner table conversations:

1. When have you depended on someone only to discover that he or she has let you down? What are some examples of lessons that you have had to learn the hard way?
2. What did Isaiah insist would be the outcome of reliance on Egypt? (Isaiah 31:1-3) To what wild animal did Isaiah compare the Lord’s vengeance against Israel’s enemies? (vv4-9)
3. Why do people often feel there is security to be gained outside of God? How would you describe the symptoms of trusting in the arm of flesh rather than the arm of the Lord?
4. In what ways has God already proven His faithfulness over your life?
5. What is one practical way you could place your sense of security in God? What does “faithing” look like for you this week?

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The post Misplaced Trust: How Are You ‘Faithing’? appeared first on Jimmy Larche.

Is Your World Falling Apart, or Falling Into Place?

Text: Acts 27:1-44

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

Last week we had to say goodbye to our reliable little Ford Fiesta, which was totaled after Cindy was in an auto accident. When we retrace the details of that day, it’s quite amazing that she walked away from the accident scene without even a scratch. We look at the pictures of the crash and know without a shadow of doubt that she was held in the hand of God in those circumstances.

We know that she was in God’s grip during that anxious moment and we know that He will also hold us in the stressful process of replacing the vehicle. The lyrics of Casting Crown’s song Just Be Held keep saturating my thoughts like a constant rainfall:

Your world’s not falling apart, it’s falling into place
I’m on the throne, stop holding on and just be held

Sometimes it does feel like our world is falling apart—whether it’s the loss of a car you depend on every day, a sudden financial crisis, an alarming health concern, a business venture that collapses, or having your home flooded by a hurricane. It can feel like we are going under.

It’s in times like these that God wants us to remember that He is on the throne, and maybe our world isn’t falling apart as much as it is falling into place. In these moments we can be held by the grip of grace with a trust that the Supreme Being is orchestrating Romans 8:28 promises in our lives.

In Acts 27, Paul is detained on a ship that is transporting prisoners to Rome, where the apostle must stand trial before Caesar. As the ship founders amidst a devastating storm, 276 anxious people aboard begin to fear the worst. This was before the use of the compass as a maritime navigational device, when sailors depended on the sun and stars for their bearings. However Luke the physician, an eyewitness to this dangerous peril, writes that when “neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned” (Acts 27:20).

Hope was lost!

Sometimes it feels like we have no compass, no sun or stars, and no visible path forward. Yet this is when God does some of His best work in our lives!

In a time when Paul could’ve easily become self-absorbed with his own dreadful circumstances, instead he is serving others and urging them to take heart. An angel tells him not to be afraid, and in a vivid display of leadership in crisis (note that even prison chains can’t restrain Paul from leading well), Paul encourages and strengthens the souls of people in distress. Even the ship’s captain and guards begin to listen to this faithful man of God, and when the soldiers plot to kill the prisoners (lest any should escape), God’s man is influential in saving their lives.

Eventually the ship runs aground on an island with no loss of life, only the loss of cargo. They had to abandon the cargo to get out safely. It’s been observed that the ship had to be broken for the people to survive. The vessel carrying them had to be sacrificed in order to save them. Sounds familiar, yeah? That’s precisely what Jesus did for us on the cross. He sacrificed his own life in order to save us.

This is life, beloved. We have to let go of “the rudder” on a daily basis and let God hold us. He has a plan for our lives and He knows the outcomes. He writes our stories from beginning to end. Our futures are a memory to him because He’s already there. What seems to be a total loss may simply be God’s process in bringing about a much bigger glory in our lives—always to His praise!

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, we trust that where the compass fails, your arm of salvation flexes. Help us, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to see our trials and hardships less as disheartening circumstances, and more as a redirection of your divine purpose—a purpose that always has our future and your glory at heart. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Questions for Reflection and/or Family Discussion:

1. When was the last time you felt like your world was falling apart?
2. How has adversity and hardship shaped your life?
3. When have you seen God take an unfortunate situation and turn it into something good or influential for the gospel?
4. In what ways did Paul’s hardships give him a platform to serve, influence, and lead others?
5. Where do you lack a “compass” in your present circumstances? What would it look like for you to let go of the “rudder” and trust God?

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The post Falling Apart, or Falling Into Place? appeared first on Jimmy Larche.

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We live in a highlight culture. Thanks to ESPN we don’t need to watch the whole game; we can just catch the best plays on Sportscenter. Thanks to YouTube we don’t have to watch the entire movie; we can just watch the most dramatic scenes and get the best quotes. Thanks to Twitter we don’t need to read the full story, we can just get the headlines. In our culture, the highlight reel is made to be significant while what happens in the meantime is deemed much less important. What if, with God, this is actually inverted?

You know we tend to think that what happens in the meantime of our lives is not as important as the highlights. So we go from highlight to highlight without giving much value to the more trivial things in life. It’s as if we are enduring the ordinary moments just to bide our time until the next extraordinary moment happens. But we need to understand that what happens in the meantime of our lives, where ordinary, daily life happens, is vitally important to God. Because that is where our character is shaped most.

See it is healthy for us to slow down, pause and reflect, and stop asking, “What am I accomplishing?” and start asking, “What am I becoming?” The highlight reel of your life reveals your successes and accomplishments. But what you do with the meantime, the trivial, the commonplace, and the ordinary days, determines who you are becoming.

In God’s Word we get a hindsight perspective of the importance of the meantime. In 2 Samuel 5:1-10 we see an epic highlight in David’s life. At 37-years old, he becomes king over all of Israel. But it’s important for us to know the rest of the story—to understand the meantime in David’s life. While in middle school, David is anointed by Samuel to become the next king of Israel. Then in high school he slays a giant named Goliath. That was the first installment of David’s highlight reel. It was all over ESPN and the YouTube video went viral. He becomes a mighty warrior in King Saul’s army. All the people begin to sing songs about David’s courage, his heroics, and his glory. He is well on his way to becoming what Samuel had prophesied over his life: Israel’s next king.

But things start to turn bleak. Instead of getting closer to becoming king, he seems to be driven further from his calling. Threatened by David’s popularity, King Saul becomes jealous of David and makes it his personal mission to destroy Israel’s up and coming hero. David is driven into obscurity for two decades as he moves around from cave to cave, running from this madman who wants to kill him. Friends betray him. His enemies gloat over him. Some people are afraid to associate with him because it might jeopardize their lives or ruin their reputation. This becomes the meantime of David’s life.

While in a cave, David wrote Psalm 142, which echoes the meantime of his life: “In the path where I walk they have hidden a trap for me. Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul.”

Have you ever found yourself in that kind of loneliness, pouring your heart out to God?

See many archaeologists believe that the Cave of Adullam was not too far from the place where David defeated Goliath in the hills of Judah. From the cave, he may even be able to see the valley in which this great feat took place. But this was just an antiquated memory now. David had come a long way from the Valley of Elah where that incredible heroic took place. Now he’s living like a fugitive—a refugee hiding in a cave. Maybe he begins to doubt his calling—that which Samuel had prophesied over his life. Maybe he struggles with his faith in God. He remembers back to the day when he was a giant slayer, a renowned warrior, and everyone was singing songs about him. And now he’s isolated in a cave. It appeared that David was getting further and further from his calling, when in actuality it was an essential process in his calling.

The cave was the most ordinary and mundane period in David’s life but it was also where he experienced the most pruning—that character shaping business that God is really big on. The cave is where God strips us of all self-sufficiency and endows us with His sufficiency. The meantime has great importance to our lives. It’s where our character and faith is shaped the most. What we do with the meantime dictates whether our lives will be defined by worship or whining. Whether we will grow or become bitter.

C.S. Lewis said, “We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good; if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.”

A.W. Pink beautifully described David’s meantime when he wrote: “It would have been a simple matter for God to have put forth His power, destroyed Saul, and given His servant rest from all his foes. And this, no doubt, is what the energetic nature of David had much preferred… Though we are impulsive and impetuous, God is never in a hurry; the sooner we learn this lesson, the better for our own peace of mind, and the sooner shall we ‘Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him’ (Psalm 37:7)… Though God’s delays are trying to flesh and blood, nevertheless they are ordered by perfect wisdom and infinite love. ‘For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come’ (Habakkuk 2:3).

Your meantime matters! As you abide in Him today, remember that God does some of his best work in caves.

God does some of His best work in caves. Caves remind us that what we are becoming is more important than what we are accomplishing.

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The post Waiting on God: The Meantime Matters appeared first on Jimmy Larche.

The God of limitless power & creativity does not need you to understand how He will complete His promise to you, beloved. Know that He will!

…that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

(1 Corinthians 2:5 ESV)

The post God Doesn’t Need You to Understand HOW He Will Do It appeared first on Jimmy Larche.

Have you been guilty of trying to make everybody happy?

I was talking to a pastor friend of mine the other day. He told me of a time when he had become so exasperated in his work and paralyzed with the idea that he just couldn’t please everybody in his congregation that he wanted to quit.

He went into his study, fell to his knees, and cried out to God: “Lord, please show me how to make these people happy!”

God replied, “How do you expect me to show you how to do what EVEN I CAN’T DO?”

I cracked up.

My friend found new zest for his ministry from that day forward!

Jesus didn’t please everybody… he didn’t even please half the people. But he fully submitted himself to the Father’s will regardless of the opinions people had of him, and as a result he had the RIGHT approval (His Father’s), gained the RIGHT followers (even though it was the minority), and embraced his RIGHT dance with destiny. Left to the will of the majority, Jesus would’ve ended up somewhere other than Calvary. Even his followers had a different vision for his life than that of his Father’s.

Your validity as a leader is not measured by the number of people who follow you or ‘believe’ in you. It’s measured by your obedience to Christ despite what people think about you.

Your greatest attribute as a leader is not your ability to please everyone or build trust in everyone. God can’t even do that! There will always be skeptics, cynics, and doubters. The Hater Club increases its membership every year. Your job is to follow Jesus no matter what. Through hell and high water, to the ends of the earth, through a wooden cross, or into a city that will mob you such as they did to the early Apostles, you must do what God calls you to do. Your responsibility is to follow Christ relentlessly. When you do that, you are sure to find your dance with destiny and the right people will follow you as a result: people who want the same kind of reckless abandon to the will of God.

When you play to the audience of the majority around you, you forfeit your dance with destiny. We’ve all seen politicians come along and build trust through fancy rhetoric only to prove later they never had any character to begin with. Trust works better as a caboose rather than a steam locomotive. In other words, it shouldn’t be our primary agenda, but something that systematically trails our primary agenda. The steam locomotive should be obedience to God and honoring Christ. The caboose is the trust that comes from having the right agenda. When you make trust the steam locomotive (your primary agenda as a leader), you are most assuredly destined to become a people-pleaser and a failed leader.

As a leader, TRUST shouldn’t be your PRIMARY agenda, it should be the natural byproduct of making following Jesus your ONE agenda.

Jim Jones had people who trusted him… but they died from the Kool Aid! David Koresh had people who trusted in him… but they died in the compound as it burned to the ground. Hitler… you get the picture. Trust isn’t enough, nor should it be the primary virtue of a leader.

Moses had over two million followers, yet most of them didn’t trust him. They even appointed a new leader to lead them back to Egypt when they were afraid to follow Moses into the Promised Land (Numbers 14:4). But his leadership wasn’t invalidated merely because they didn’t believe him or trust in his leadership. On the contrary, Moses is esteemed as one of the greatest leaders in history. His leadership was validated even more because he made obedience to God his primary agenda, not pleasing the crowd.

Joseph was a man accused of sexual scandal, yet God had destined Joseph to be a great leader in Egypt, a leader who would save his family from a famine and rescue an entire generation. You think people didn’t lose trust in him when he was sitting in a prison cell because of some false allegations from a disingenuous woman? But Joseph wasn’t after man’s approval or the trust of the people… he was after his dance with destiny and he followed God completely despite the slanderous accusations others had cast over him. He wasn’t after trust, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a man of integrity and character. If anything, his full-fledged obedience to God despite what people thought about him gave him even more integrity and character.

The Apostle Paul is the single most influential person in all of Christianity (apart from Jesus, of course). Yet when Paul began his ministry, none of the early Christians trusted him. He didn’t care. He wasn’t out to build a FOLLOWING, he was out to FOLLOW. And as a result of dogged determination to follow THE CHRIST no matter what, he became the influential model of reckless abandon to Christ that in turn made him such a fearless, admirable, and worthy person to follow. If his aim was to gain a following by making people believe in him, he wouldn’t be worth following as a leader. What validated him as a great leader was his aim to please Christ first and foremost, and as a result, he attracted people to Jesus. That is the business of the Christ-Follower – lead in such a fashion that it attracts people to Jesus. And you lead best when JESUS is in front of you and the crowd is behind you. You can’t do that as a people pleaser because your aim is not to follow Jesus, it’s to gain the approval of people. You have the people in front of you and Jesus behind you.

The GREATEST LEADERS are not those who make gaining approval or building trust their number ONE agenda. The greatest LEADERS are those who make pleasing God, not matter what, their number ONE agenda. Those leaders will always have followers because they are less conscious about their followers and more consumed with a relentless consciousness of pleasing JESUS.

That’s the kind of leader I’ll follow anywhere.

Are you stuck trying to please people? Frustrated with the disapproval of people? Maybe the fact that you are so frustrated reveals a hard reality that you’re not making Jesus-pleasing your primary agenda, but people pleasing the main thing. When you make people pleasing your main agenda it always leaves you frustrated… because after all, you are trying to do what EVEN God can’t do.

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