To Help You Grow in Faith

The Vacillating Battle of Faith
Dr. Charles Stanley
James 1:2-8

Have you ever felt as if your Christian life swings back and forth like a pendulum between faith and doubt? This is a fairly common problem, especially when trying situations come our way. Although we know what God's Word says, our feelings tell us something totally different.

The question is not if we will experience this, but rather, how long we will remain on one side or the other. Three factors determine whether we lean toward faith or doubt: the strength of our faith at the time of the trial; our knowledge and understanding of God; and our experience with failure or success in past trials, especially those of the same nature.

To help you grow in faith, it's important to change not only your focus but also your thinking and listening practices.

• Set your mind on God's promises, not on the impossibility of your situation.

• Trust in His divine nature instead of your feelings about the circumstances.

• Seek to view the difficulty from His perspective instead of giving it your own limited interpretation.

• Listen to the Holy Spirit—not Satan's whispered lies, which stir up uncertainties.

• Rehearse the Lord's past faithfulness to you instead of dwelling on your previous failures.

The key to stabilizing faith lies in choosing to believe God, regardless of the situation. Only then will it be possible to bring natural feelings of doubt, anxiety, fear, anger, or confusion into submission to what we know to be true—that the Lord is faithful and will see us through every situation

For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.





Dealing with Sin
By Bayless Conley

I want to follow up on yesterday's devotional by pointing you to 1 Peter 2:18-23,

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

The Goodspeed translation says, "He committed His cause to Him who judges righteously." Now these verses are pretty clear: God is a righteous judge. And even if you are being mistreated for doing right, if you will commit things to God, He has a marvelous way of turning the tables in your favor.

You have to maintain three things if God is, indeed, going to use you in such a situation.

1. You have to maintain a right spirit. You have to keep a good attitude. You cannot get bitter. You have to stay kind.

2. You have to keep right speech. Do not dish out the same kind of abuse. Do not start saying things that are going to create division.

3. You have to maintain right service. Even if you are being mistreated, continue working hard for the Lord. Do not sabotage things.

If you will do these three things, just watch what God does through your difficulties!

Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God




Kutless - Everything I Need