From the CANON on this blog:
Solutions
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,”
says the LORD . “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For
just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your
ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
Today’s scripture reading:
This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad. Greetings!
Dear
brothers and sisters,
when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great
joy.
For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has
a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you
will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If
you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not
rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone.
Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of
the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such
people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their
loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in
everything they do.
James
1:1-8
Today’s
devotional:
Faith is the heart
of our Christian life. It is the means by which we are saved, receive
forgiveness for our sins, enjoy a personal relationship with the Lord, and have
the assurance of our salvation. By faith, we experience the peace of God and
the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Bible also tells us that praying
in confident trust “avails much” (James 5:16
NKJV). Yet our lives and especially our prayers tend to be characterized by
doubts and wavering faith.
Our faith wavers
when . . .
We apply
human thinking to our circumstances. Sometimes God is going to require us to do something with which human
reasoning disagrees (“For just as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts
higher than your thoughts.” Isa. 55:9).
We allow our
feelings to overcome our faith.
It could be a sense of unworthiness or inadequacy that trips us up. Fear of
criticism or failure might cause us to doubt we can do what the Lord asks.
We fail to
see God at work in our circumstances. Doubts creep in when we have asked Him to take action but nothing
appears to be happening.
We have
guilt over sin, past or present.
We cannot operate with strong faith when we are under conviction of sin or
dwelling on guilt over past wrongdoing.
We listen to
the enemy’s lies. Satan is the
father of lies, and his objective is to have us reject God’s truth and believe
his deception instead.
Faith is defined as
“the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
What is the condition of your faith? Do confidence and conviction describe you?
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