Charis

Allow me to share a testimony of God’s faithfulness and provision:

We’ve had some financial difficulties since last October, and though we are making progress, we still have a ways to go before everything is back to normal. We have tried a number of conventional solutions—refinancing and so forth—and none of them has worked out, though […]

Last night over coffee, a group of us were talking about God’s plans for our lives and learning to wait while the plans unfold. The conversation turned to Joseph and Moses, who both knew God had called them to something great and yet waited a long time to see it come about.

What did these men […]

Last time, I wrote about the names of God, looking at a handful of psalms for the ways that God is described. As I meditate on and come to believe that God truly is “my stronghold, my refuge, my light, and my salvation,” I will find it easier to experience the perfect peace that Isaiah promises to those who stay fixed on God.

It’s knowledge of God that allows us to trust Him, and knowing these names is one way to know Him better. The Psalms also reveal His nature in more detail as David and other writers praise God at length for different aspects of His character. Today, I want to point you toward just a few psalms that can build our faith in God.

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p>Need a reminder that God is able? Take Psalm 29, as an example; David begins with “Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.” The rest of this psalm describes God’s majesty and power. For instance, David tells us: continue reading

Several months ago, I wrote about calling on the name of God, citing a number of passages that talk about the power of God’s name. What I didn’t do was point you toward passages on the names of God. This seems like a good time to do that; in yesterday’s post, peace: a matter of focus, I wrote about knowing God as a key to trusting Him, and by extension, a key to having peace. We looked at Isaiah 25, which tells us that God is “a stronghold to the poor.”

Psalm 9 links these two concepts, God’s name and God as stronghold: continue reading

Last time, I wrote about God’s perfect peace that comes to those who stay focused on Him. We find this wonderful promise of peace in Isaiah 26:3:

You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You.

According to Isaiah, the key to keeping our minds stayed or fixed on God is to trust God. Sounds simple enough, and those of us who have been in church for long know we ought to trust God. This is one of those times, though, when it’s easier said than done. Circumstance gets in the way, and many things compete for our attention. My work is not going well: do I keep my mind fixed on that problem or on God? Money is tight, my child has a health problem, a tragedy has occurred to a close friend—the list goes on. As the commercial says, “Life comes at you fast.” And with each problem, we are tested in our focus.

And it really is a matter of focus. continue reading

In my previous posts, I’ve touched on the role of our thinking in regard to peace: the peace of Christ rules in our hearts when we submit our thoughts and feelings to peace (Colossians 3:15), and the peace that passes understanding can guard our hearts and minds when we let go of anxious thinking and […]

Tuesday, I wrote about letting peace be the umpire in Colossians 3:15 and started to explore what that entails. Submission is one part; an umpire, by definition, has authority to make a call, and the umpire’s authority necessitates my submission to that call.

And that leads me to the second big idea: an umpire only makes […]