Growth & Development

Hope for New Years Resolutions

2 Comments / Growth & Development / Tom Stuart

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be? In just days we mark the beginning of a New Year – 2011. It is an opportunity to script a new beginning and turn over a new leaf.

When I did a quick survey of a number of websites touting popular New Year’s resolutions I discovered they all fall into one of the following categories, listed here in no particular order . . .

One of the great theological treatises on the pitfalls and perils of new beginnings is the 1991 movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray. It is the story of an arrogant, self-centered man named Phil who finds himself trapped in living the same day over and over and over again. Despite numerous resolutions, no matter how hard he tries he cannot turn over a new leaf on the calendar. Every morning Phil wakes up to the same song on the radio, meets the same people, faces the same problems and is confronted with the same decisions. Essentially he is sentenced to reliving the day until he finally has a change of heart that enables him to get it right.

The deep theological truth embedded in this movie is that an internal change is required for an external change to truly take effect.

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Jesus needs you

Growth & Development, Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

“Without God man cannot, without man God will not.” Augustine
We all know the story of Jonah and the extraordinary measures God used to get him to carry His message of repentance to the city Nineveh. And most people know the story of the man in Jesus’ parable of the talents, who buried his instead of investing it. Although Jonah, in running from God, was much more cantankerous than the one talent guy who simply refused to use his talent, they both were very much alike. Neither one of them thought God really needed them to do His work.

Both offered the same excuse for their stubbornness in not doing what God had asked them to do. Both rationalized that God in His might and sovereignty could do what he bid them to do without them, so why should they bother. (Jonah 4:2 & Matthew 25:24)

What they failed to understand about God is that He has chosen to delight Himself in working through the agency of man.

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Believe is an action verb

9 Comments / Growth & Development, Prayer / Tom Stuart

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)
Did you know that in twenty of the world’s most primitive languages the word for believe is the same as the word for do? That is something Wycliffe Bible translators have discovered in years of working to translate the Bible into the native language of remote people groups. In other words, for those cultures, to believe something literally means to do something. Faith and action are inseparable. Truth be told, that is the way God intends it.
Genuine faith is expressed through action. This is a discovery that one readily makes when studying Hebrews 11 the great faith chapter of the Bible. A careful reading of the account of Abraham, the father of our faith, in verses 8 through 19 underscores this truth like none other.

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Making sense of prophetic timing

3 Comments / Growth & Development, Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

The Lord isn’t slow to do what he promised, as some people think. 2 Peter 3:9 (God’s Word Translation)
The timing and means of prophetic pronouncements are often cloaked in mystery. And here is why. Prophecy lifts us into the realm of the Spirit which transcends time and space as we know it. Time for God is different than time for us. “But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8) Past, present and future for us is simply “now” for God.

There are two things that are often stumbling blocks when it comes to processing personal prophecies and promises from the Lord. They have to do with the timing of their fulfillment and the means by which they ultimately come to pass. Because we are working from a limited understanding, our script of when and how God intends to do something often leaves us scratching our heads. Invariably God’s timing and way of doing something do not match ours. (Isaiah 55:9)

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Testing a message from God

4 Comments / Growth & Development, Relationship with God / Tom Stuart

How does a person who really wants be directed by the Holy Spirit test whether or not it is God’s voice they are hearing? God speaks in myriads of ways. He speaks primarily through the Bible, but also through inner impressions (thoughts and visions), dreams, circumstances and through other people. The problem is that the voice of the devil and self also use those same means to deceive us.

Consider the fact that the Devil used scripture to try to deceive Jesus. In fact Paul in writing to the Galatians warned that even messages from angels needed to be tested for deception. (Galatians 1:8)

And our own hearts can deceive us. The prophet Jeremiah tells us that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (17:9) In other words, it is easy for us to deceive ourselves and to be deceived when we are not crucifying the flesh or keeping strong selfish desires in check.

The simplest approach to determining whether the guidance we are seeking is from God or not is based on an old principle from celestial navigation. You might call it the three point alignment principle. A sailor desiring to determine his location needed three fixed points such as stars, planets or the sun and moon. GPS guidance works on the same principle requiring three satellites to determine latitude and longitude and a fourth to obtain altitude.

So how do we test messages purporting to be from God?

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