“God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart” (Deuteronomy 8:2 NIV).

Christmas brings a time of WAITING!!! Something I am not very good at not only during this times, but also many times during my life. Sometimes I know what needs need to be met and I know what needs to happen, I am just not very patient at times. So as you read this, know I am right there with ya!!!

If every prayer were answered immediately, if every need were instantly met, and if every problem were automatically solved, your faith would never be stretched. You’d be spoiled. You’d have no need for faith!

We’re humans, and we don’t like to wait. We hate it! We don’t like to wait in a doctor’s office or in a grocery store line or at stop signs. And you’d better not make us wait for our food at a restaurant!

But life is full of waiting. The Israelites had to learn this reality. Deuteronomy 8:2 says, “God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart” (NIV).

Maybe you are in God’s waiting room right now. It’s not a lot of fun. But it is a necessary time of building your faith.

The Bible says in Isaiah 64:4, “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him” (NIV).

This means that while you’re waiting, God is working. You may not be able to see it. It may be behind the scenes. But while you’re waiting for that answer to prayer, for that thing to change, for the circumstances to be different, God is working—and he’s working on you.

Talk It Over

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” (Hebrews 12:1 NASB).

What do you do when you feel like giving up? Everyone has that moment where they’ve been struggling with something—it may be a health issue, a broken relationship, financial problems, or depression—and they start to wonder if they have the strength to keep going because they just can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.

If you find yourself at that point today, I want to share some encouragement with you from Hebrews 12 and give you a powerful reason to keep on keeping on. STAY IN THE FIGHT!

Hebrews 11 is the “faith chapter” that tells us about great people of the faith—Abraham, Moses, David, and many others. Their stories are sources of encouragement in and of themselves. But a phrase that starts off the first verse of the next chapter is what I want to focus on. Hebrews 12:1 says, 

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of surrounding us . . .” (NASB)

What Paul is saying is that you don’t want to give up because heaven is watching and cheering for you. That’s encouraging news!

You have an audience. Nothing you have ever done has been hidden from heaven. God sees it all! As Job says, ““Does He not see my ways, and number all my steps?” (Job 31:4 NASB).

And Jesus tells us, “ Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” (Luke 12:7 NASB).

God knows every detail of your life. He watches every breath you take. There are no secrets between you and him.

And it’s not just God who’s watching. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and all the other saints are there as well.

How is this encouraging? When you start to get discouraged, remember that people who have gone through much worse circumstances than you are watching to see how well you’re enduring.

When you feel like giving up, remember the people who have gone before you and are offering you encouragement through their life stories of faith.

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“I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel,” (Philippians 1:12 ESV).

No matter what’s going on in your life—the good, the bad, and the ugly—God is working out a plan. Paul knew this. He says in Philippians 1:12, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel” (ESV).

Ever since becoming a Christian on the road to Damascus, Paul had dreamed one great dream: He wanted to preach in Rome, the center of the universe at the time. His dream was to preach the Gospel in the most important city in the world.

But God had another idea. Instead of sending Paul to Rome to preach crusades, God made him a royal prisoner of Nero, who was Caesar at that time. Nero was about as wicked and as bad as you can get.

Paul was chained to a royal guard 24 hours a day for two years, and the guard was changed every four hours. Over two years in prison, he had 4,380 opportunities to witness to countless guards. Who’s the real prisoner here? Who had the captive audience?

This wasn’t Paul’s plan, but it was God’s all along, and it produced two results that we know for sure.

First of all, Philippians 4 says that within two years, some of Nero’s own household had become believers because of Paul’s witness in the royal court in Rome.

Secondly, it’s kind of hard to get a guy like Paul to stop moving. In prison, he was forced to be still, and as a result, he wrote parts of the New Testament. I wonder which had a bigger impact: his preaching in the Colosseum or the books he wrote that have revealed Jesus to untold numbers of people over the years.

Paul knew that God had a bigger plan, and he could be happy because he saw what God was doing through his problem.

Anytime you have a problem that’s starting to get you down, you need to do what Paul did: Learn to see it from God’s point of view. Ask, “What is God doing here? What’s the bigger picture? What’s the bigger perspective?” Then you’ll be able to face the problem in faith.

Talk It Over

“The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives” (Deuteronomy 14:23 TLB).

Whatever you want God to bless, you have to put him first in. So if you want God to bless your finances, you have to put him first in your money. This is the principle of tithing: You give the first 10 percent of your income back to God.

Here are four verses that explain the promise, the purpose, the place, and the day for tithing.

First, Proverbs 3:9-10 gives the promise about tithing: Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce; ¹⁰ So your barns will be filled with plenty And your vats will overflow with new wine. (NASB). God says that if you honor him with the first part of your income, he will bless you financially.

Dee and I decided over 24 years ago that if we’re going to be in debt to anybody, we’re not going to be in debt to God. God gets paid first, right off the top. If I make 10 bucks, the first dollar goes back to him. If I make a hundred bucks, the first 10 bucks go back to him. It all comes from God in the first place, and I want his blessing on the rest of it.

Why does God tell us to tithe? Deuteronomy 14:23 says, “The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives” (TLB). God doesn’t need your money, but he wants what it represents: your heart. He wants you to trust him.

Where should you tithe? Do you tithe to United Way? Or do you tithe to your brother who’s been out of work for three years? No. That’s charity. Tithing is an act of worship. It goes to God.

Malachi 3:10 says, ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. (NASB). The storehouse is the temple or the place where you worship God.

When are you supposed to tithe? You do it on the day you worship. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 16:2, ² On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. (NASB). When you give to God on the first day of the week, the first part of your day, and the first part of your money, you’re declaring, “You’re really number one in my life.”

Notice that the verse says to “put aside.” You’ve got to plan this! Tithing should not be an impulsive thing. You’ve got to plan for it so that you are honoring God’s plan and purpose for tithing. Then you can watch how God blesses and uses you and honors his promise in your life.

Talk It Over

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today’” (Matthew 6:31-34 NLT).

How do you know you’re not experiencing the love of God? You’re worried.

You can’t simultaneously worry and worship God. Every time you worry, you’ve forgotten how much God loves you. Worry is really acting like an atheist. It’s pretending you’re an orphan rather than a child of God.

Jesus said, “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today’” (Matthew 6:31-34 NLT).

Jesus tells us there’s a truth that’s much more important than anything we’re worrying about: We have a heavenly Father who created us, loves us, wants what is best for us, and is watching over us. He is working for our good and has given us hundreds of promises of his faithfulness. Worry is pretending you don’t know any of that.

A friend of mine doesn’t like to fly when there’s turbulence. A few years ago, he was on a plane experiencing constant turbulence. He told me later, “I had to decide whether I would worry or worship. So instead of worrying, I put in my ear buds and put on a bunch of worship songs.”

You’ll either worry or worship for the rest of your life. You’ll either panic or pray. You’ll either look at your problems or look at God.

Which will you choose?

Talk It Over

“Hold fast to the word of life” (Philippians 2:16 NASB).

God has promised many wonderful benefits in your life if you will meditate on the Word of God and then apply its truths to your life.

How do you meditate? If you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate. Worry is when you take a negative thought and think on it over and over and over. On the other hand, when you take a passage of Scripture and think on it over and over and over, that’s meditation.

If all you do is hear the Word of God when you go to church, you’ll have a weak grip on the Word of God, and it easily can be pulled out of your mind.

Psalm 119:16 says, “I shall delight in Your statutes;

I shall not forget Your word.” (NASB). Do you want to be happy? Following God’s principles will produce happiness, and you remember those principles by memorizing them, meditating on them, and then applying them.

In addition, Psalm 119:35 says, “Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it.” (NASB). Usually we’re looking for happiness in all the wrong places. God says happiness is found in the path of HIS commands.

Talk It Over

“and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,” (Philippians 3:9 NASB).

Legalism will rob you of happiness. It’s the attitude that you have to prove your love to God, which means you have to make sure you do everything exactly right. It’s thinking you have to follow rules and regulations and restrictions in order to prove yourself worthy. One of the consequences of being legalistic is that we then force the same expectations on others, thinking they also have to prove their worth to God.

Legalism will suck your life dry of happiness. It sucks churches dry of happiness. Everybody’s just there out of duty or guilt.

How do you know when you’re being legalistic? It’s when you’re judgmental of other people. How do you know when you’re living by grace? It’s when you’re gracious to others. People who live by grace often find it easier to forgive because they recognize that God continues to forgive them.

When you finally realize there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more, it is one of the most liberating feelings in the world. And it is a key to happiness. Every day, remind yourself of God’s grace, and relax in it.

Talk It Over

Honor the Lord from your wealth; And from the first of all your produce; (Proverbs 3:9 NASB).

The Bible says, “Honor the Lord from your wealth; And from the first of all your produce;” (Proverbs 3:9 NASB). This is the principle of tithing. It’s the principle that says every time you make $100, the first $10 goes back to God.

Tithing is an act of worship. We’re giving back to God. We’re saying, “Here is a small portion of my blessing. You deserve far more. And all of it, everything I have, came from you.” God wants you to recognize that every good thing you have—every provision—is a gift from him. He wants you to put him first in your life so you can learn to be generous and then watch what he does—in your life and in the people around you.

You may think you can’t afford to tithe. You may think it’s too much to “give away” 10 percent of what you’re given. But the reality is, you can’t afford not to do it.

There is a universal law called the principle of sowing and reaping. If I sow criticism, I’m going to reap criticism. If I sow generosity, it’s going to come back to me, and I’m going to reap generosity.

Every farmer knows this. If a farmer has four sacks of seed in his barn, and he looks at his empty field, he doesn’t complain, “There’s no crop! I wish there was a crop!” He just goes out and starts planting seed. When you have a need, plant a seed.

It seems illogical that when I have a need, I should give. That’s why it requires faith. God says, “My ways are not your ways. But you can trust my ways.”

Why did God set it up that way? Because God is a giver. He is the most generous giver in the universe, and he wants you to learn to be like him.

This is why you’re here: to become more like Christ. Follow God’s example in your giving, and he will build his character in you.

Talk It Over

What is the greatest thing you have sown in your life? How have you reaped the benefits?

If you already faithfully tithe 10 percent, how can you continue to grow in your giving habits?

If your number one goal is to become more like Christ, how does that affect your giving?

Talk It Over:

Why does God’s work to make us more like Jesus take a seemingly long time?

When you look at the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5, which ones seem to be the most difficult for you to embrace? Why?

What difference does it make for you to know that God will complete his great work in and through your life someday?