Apprentice and master “God is aware of everything you’re going through. Although there are moments in your life that appear as if God’s time is taking a long time, remember God always comes through on time in every situation you encounter in life. God’s timing and your obedience to follow Him is linked to your victory! At those times when it appears that God is taking too long He may in fact be training you to accomplish His specific purpose for you.”
This is the final post on in the God’s Training Program series. It is excerpts from devotions written by Rick Warren and Charles Stanley.
Your Integrity Shows Your Faithfulness
Daily Hope with Rick Warren
For centuries, everybody who learned a skill, trade, or vocation learned it through an apprenticeship. If you were going to be a mechanic, you apprenticed to another mechanic and served in his (or her) business before you started your own.
This principle of apprenticeship applies to every area of your life. It applies to how you handle other people’s money, how you handle other people’s possessions, and even how you handle other people’s ministry before God gives you your own.
Before God gave me my own ministry, I served as a youth pastor under another man’s ministry. God was watching how I handled it; he was testing my integrity. I needed to prove my faithfulness in that ministry before God would allow me to lead the ministry of Saddleback Church.
Your Integrity Shows Your Faithfulness - Daily Hope with Rick Warren - January 18, 2018 - Daily Hope Devotional
This is the final post on in the God’s Training Program series. It is excerpts from devotions written by Rick Warren and Charles Stanley.
Your Integrity Shows Your Faithfulness
Daily Hope with Rick Warren
For centuries, everybody who learned a skill, trade, or vocation learned it through an apprenticeship. If you were going to be a mechanic, you apprenticed to another mechanic and served in his (or her) business before you started your own.
This principle of apprenticeship applies to every area of your life. It applies to how you handle other people’s money, how you handle other people’s possessions, and even how you handle other people’s ministry before God gives you your own.
Before God gave me my own ministry, I served as a youth pastor under another man’s ministry. God was watching how I handled it; he was testing my integrity. I needed to prove my faithfulness in that ministry before God would allow me to lead the ministry of Saddleback Church.
Your Integrity Shows Your Faithfulness - Daily Hope with Rick Warren - January 18, 2018 - Daily Hope Devotional
The Valley Experiences in Our Lives
Excerpted from Life Principle 28 of the YouVerson Reading Plan, Dr. Charles Stanley Life Principles To Live By, 30 Day Reading Plan from InTouch Ministries..
We learn more in our valley experiences than on our mountaintops.
Adversity, anguish, trials, tribulations, and heartaches operate as lessons in the school of experience. They bring us to a place of new insight and understanding. They can alter our perceptions of the world, our views of God, and lead us to change our behaviors. The Lord, of course, is the ultimate Teacher. He’s the One to whom we must look for the meaning of any lesson related to adversity.
God allows adversity for at least three reasons:
1. To Get Our Attention
The Lord uses a wide variety of methods to gain our attention when necessary—and adversity is one of them. Don’t delay in responding to the Lord when He moves to get your attention. Respond quickly and humbly. Hear what He has to say to you.
2. For Examination
At times, God allows adversity to motivate us to self-examination. The winds of adversity blow away the surface issues and force us to cope with things on a deeper level. Nothing has the ability to drive us closer to God than tribulation. It removes the cloak of denial and reveals who we really are, as well as what we believe about God, His deity, and faithfulness.
Paul encouraged the Corinthians, “A man must examine himself” (1 Cor. 11:28). In other words, “Take a straight forward look inside and discover what’s driving, motivating, and enticing you.” If it’s anything but God, then it’s not right. He needs to be your motivating factor at every turn in life.
3. To Change Behavior
It isn’t enough that God desires to get our attention or encourage us to take a truthful look at our lives. We must also allow His Spirit to have free access to every area. Unless we change our response and behavior, we’ll never benefit from adversity or grow as a result of it. God provides a challenge, and we have an opportunity to obey or disobey Him. The choice is ours, and the consequences that come belong to us as well.
If you’re willing to allow God to surface the inner rubbish of your life—and if you’re willing to change what needs to be changed—you’ll emerge from adversity closer to Christ, more mature as His child, and with far greater potential to reflect the love of God to the world around you.
Excerpted from Life Principle 28 of the YouVerson Reading Plan, Dr. Charles Stanley Life Principles To Live By, 30 Day Reading Plan from InTouch Ministries..
We learn more in our valley experiences than on our mountaintops.
Adversity, anguish, trials, tribulations, and heartaches operate as lessons in the school of experience. They bring us to a place of new insight and understanding. They can alter our perceptions of the world, our views of God, and lead us to change our behaviors. The Lord, of course, is the ultimate Teacher. He’s the One to whom we must look for the meaning of any lesson related to adversity.
God allows adversity for at least three reasons:
1. To Get Our Attention
The Lord uses a wide variety of methods to gain our attention when necessary—and adversity is one of them. Don’t delay in responding to the Lord when He moves to get your attention. Respond quickly and humbly. Hear what He has to say to you.
2. For Examination
At times, God allows adversity to motivate us to self-examination. The winds of adversity blow away the surface issues and force us to cope with things on a deeper level. Nothing has the ability to drive us closer to God than tribulation. It removes the cloak of denial and reveals who we really are, as well as what we believe about God, His deity, and faithfulness.
Paul encouraged the Corinthians, “A man must examine himself” (1 Cor. 11:28). In other words, “Take a straight forward look inside and discover what’s driving, motivating, and enticing you.” If it’s anything but God, then it’s not right. He needs to be your motivating factor at every turn in life.
3. To Change Behavior
It isn’t enough that God desires to get our attention or encourage us to take a truthful look at our lives. We must also allow His Spirit to have free access to every area. Unless we change our response and behavior, we’ll never benefit from adversity or grow as a result of it. God provides a challenge, and we have an opportunity to obey or disobey Him. The choice is ours, and the consequences that come belong to us as well.
If you’re willing to allow God to surface the inner rubbish of your life—and if you’re willing to change what needs to be changed—you’ll emerge from adversity closer to Christ, more mature as His child, and with far greater potential to reflect the love of God to the world around you.
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