Sunday, May 31st
Written by Michael Williams

Hebrews 2:18
For because he himself (Jesus) has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Have you ever felt horrible because you wanted to do something that you knew God didn’t want you to do? It can be a very horrible feeling. Why is it that sometimes we want to do the things that God despises? That is what temptation thrives on, isn’t it, our sometimes unavoidable desire to do things our own way. If we didn’t want to do what were are “tempted” to do, it wouldn’t really be a temptation, would it? But then there is this dilemma that arises, because you really don’t want to do that particular thing. You really don’t, but apart of you does, right?

It talks about this in Romans 7, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” There is this on going battle that is waged within us between the wants and the want nots. The temptation thrives on our Flesh’s selfish desires and is resisted by our redeemed spirits in Christ that desire to do the will of God. Jesus himself dealt with this! Don’t be discouraged if you feel the desire to do the things you know don’t glorify God, FIGHT THEM! Those desires are inevitable, but they are also controllable. “Not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42

In the event of having the desire to do something that you think maybe outside of the way God intended, surrender your decisions to God. Instead of following through with the desire, follow through with what ever commitment you gave to God on the issue. Don’t worry about the fact that you have been tempted, focus getting past the temptation and thank God when you do. Jesus dealt the same issue right up to the point before he gave His life for us. Don’t think yourself any better than Him. You will be tempted, and you will have the desire to do things outside of the will God. But that is not important. The important thing is what you do with those desires, do you hold on to them, or do you surrender them to God.
Not my will, but yours be done.

Extra time in the Word Hebrews 2

Saturday, May 30th
Written by Kyle Shultz

Psalm 97:10
Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for He guards the lives of His faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

This verse basically says if you belong to God, don’t sin. There are a ton of different scenarios where this sounds incredibly difficult because we live in a world that is opposite of how God shows us He wants us to live. How is it possible to hate evil when deep inside you want to do it and can’t change that? My college professor once would say that when God says to love something or hate something it means to choose something and in choosing that you do not choose another thing. That makes complete sense when you think of instances where Jesus said you can’t serve two masters. I believe that we underestimate the power of Christ has given us through choice. What is supposed to drive a Christian to reject wrong is not the fact that they don’t want to do wrong. You must first be responding to the Lord’s love by loving Him back. You can’t just refuse to sin. It’s like saying, :”I’m not going to think about purple elephants,” but in focusing on it you think about it. There has to be something greater that takes the place in your heart in order for you to reject what you would naturally crave, and the only way to do that is by choosing to love the Lord back. Once you do that, He will take care of the battle and claim back that where the enemy has a stronghold in your life. He takes care of it all, but it’s up to you in order to make what decisions you must in order keep His love at the forefront of yourself.

Extra time in the Word Psalm 97

Friday, May 29th
Written by Janet Scott

Isaiah 35:4
say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Fear is a terrible thing and Satan loves to use it to stop us in our tracks and make our lives a prison to live in. The walls of fear are not from God and God wants to remove them and create a life full of the Freedom He created for you! This verse is for you, whether you are the one paralyzed by fear all the time or you are the one who knows of someone suffering from constant fear. Seek Godly counsel if you are the one struggling and allow someone to show you how you can take control of the fear that grips you so that you can feel strong again! God always promises a way of escape and here He promises to rescue you, He is your “knight in shining armour” or if you are a guy maybe your Navy Seal guardian, however you look at it, God loves you and wants to take care of you and anything you may fear. He will save you from what ever it is if you allow Him to, so take heart, chin up, and be strong, don’t fear Your God will come!

Extra time in the Word Isaiah 35

Thursday, May 28th
Written by Michael Williams

2 Thessalonians 3:2-3
“For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.”

There are times that will come when we will doubt. But Jesus died knowing that, right? There will be times when we won’t understand what God is doing and we will doubt that He really has our best interests in mind, but Jesus died anyway, right?
He knows that we can have the tendency to doubt, otherwise faith would not be faith. If you had no choice but to believe in something, if you had proof beyond the shadow of a doubt, would you really need faith? God knows this and understands this. So if ever in doubt, know that God is not going to forsake you just because you don’t understand everything about the way He conducts His business. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.” Isaiah 55:8

God understands. It’s okay if you doubt sometimes, it happens, you’re human. Remember that God will still be there to strengthen your faith when it is weak.

Extra time in the Word 2 Thessalonians 3

Wednesday, May 27th
Written by Kyle Shultz

Titus 1:15
Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted.

Did you ever see the end of the movie The Matrix? It’s one of my favorite movies. Everyone told Neo that he could do anything in the Matrix, but it didn’t matter because he didn’t believe it. Because he didn’t believe it, the agents already had the fight won. Neo gets into this prolonged fight with Agent Smith. Neo is by far superior to him but he never realized it. It wasn’t until he was basically defeated that he began to see that he was “the one”. When he saw that he was facing a computer program, he kicked butt.

It doesn’t matter how good or how bad your life is right now. If you’ve got Jesus, you’ve got enough. The challenge that we have is that a lot of times we look at life the same way as those who don’t have Jesus. One big difference is that He has made us pure before our Father, and His promise is that if we live in that purity, we will see God at work in our lives no matter what the situation. That means that when things are going bad, you’ll see God helping you through and you can take comfort because it will be ok. When things are going good, you will be able to bless Him for His goodness. God is at work in your life whether you notice it or not because He loves you. Ask Him to help you see what He’s doing for you.

Extra time in the Word Titus 1

Tuesday, May 26th
Written by Kyle Shultz

Psalm 90:14
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

This was written right in the middle of the psalmist crying out how bad of a situation he was in. It’s definitely the opposite of what I would want to do in during a tough time. Now you can spend time with God anytime of the day, God has given us freedom to do that. But this is why I think it’s important to start the day off with Him. If you think about it, we are designed to give ourselves to something. When times get tough, it’s natural to want to give ourselves to trying to make something better. But when you look at this verse, God wants us put our focus on Him in the hard times, as unnatural as it may seem. So why is it in the tough times if God’s love never fails, why don’t we see it? It’s because we lose sight of it. Being satisfied in His love means finding our satisfaction in His love. In order to find satisfaction in it, we have to value it, and to value it, we need to choose to value it. Choose to value God’s love for you and ask Him to open your eyes to how His unfailing love is at work in your life. When you worship Him despite what you’re feeling, you’ll find He gives you strength to move forward.

Extra time in the Word Psalm 90

Monday, May 25th
Written by Janet Scott

Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Our thoughts truly make up who we are, so what are you thinking about? What thoughts do you let rule your day? The Bible tells us to take every thought captive and in these verses it tells us to think on good, positive things! As Bill always tells me, “choose to believe” and in this case choose to believe the truth and the good. Choose to believe who you are in Christ, not the lies Satan tells you. You become what you think about. You are alive in Christ, you are more than a conqueror over those things you struggle with, God made you beautiful, God made you whole! The following is a little “story” that I have always loved.

A native American boy was talking with his Grandfather one day. “What do you think about the world situation?” he asked. The grandfather replied, “I feel like wolves are fighting in my heart. One is full of anger and hatred; the other is full of love, forgiveness, and peace.” “Which one will win?” asked the boy. To which the grandfather replied, “The one I feed.”

Which attitude and thought process will you feed today? It is a new day with no mistakes in it, so how will you choose to spend it? Remember this, you will reap the fruit of the thoughts you sow. Someone once said, “you can’t plant crabapples and expect to harvest Golden Delicious.”

Extra time in the Word Philippians 4

Sunday, May 24th
Written by Michael Williams

Psalm 8:4
What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

I suppose in my own selfish way expect a response from God every time I pray. When I forget to appreciate is immeasurable ability to just listen coupled with the undying desire to hear from us. This creates an interesting paradox; why would God want to know more about us, if He already knows everything? Maybe us explaining ourselves and our situations are for ourselves, in the sense of relinquishing the fate of our identity. It does something for God because for some reason that I doubt I will ever know, He gets something out of being there for us in the way that He is. This explains a deeper reason behind our reason for being…relationship.

Relationship. It is less absurd I suppose when you think of God’s desire to share this with us when you consider that it is what we were made for. And in any good relationship there is a level of communication that is beyond just the casual “please and thank you”. The “I do for you if you do for me” nature of the capitalistic exchange that we seem to think makes the world go round. It is elaborate, it is deep, it is explanatory, it is sensitive, it is terrifying and it is wonderful all at the same time. It is when we are our most real communicated through what our limited vocabulary, vocal tone, and body language will allow. It is boundlessly versatile and poetically abstract. Prayer is not what we do, it is the expression of who we are in a concentrated sense, directed to one person with all of the tenacity our hearts can muster in the utterance of limited expression. Prayer is not praying, prayer is being. And in that state of being expressing the untold secrets of ourselves in hopes of a compassionate reciprocation of our openness. We pray not only to let God know who we are, but to know who God is. We are to hope that through our prayers and supplications He will be as open with us as we are with Him. Because what can we tell God about ourselves that he does not already know? Prayer and Hope are to be as husband and wife (Hope leading and cherishing prayer and prayer honoring and submitting to Hope) in our pursuit of a God outside of our most apparent consciousness, And in this pursuit discover who we are through our inquiries of God Himself.

Extra time in the Word Psalm 8

Saturday, May 26th
Written by Kyle Shultz

1 Peter 1:13-14
Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

Let me ask you this, why is it that we see a lot of Christians, born and raised in church that live their lives like anyone else you’d see on the street? I have a few thoughts. I think that a lot of students look around them and see Christians in the church who talk a good talk but misrepresent Christ with their lives, and instead of going to Christ, settle with seeing people fail to live in Christ and just walk away. I think that others see God’s promises to His children, and they want them. So they pray for them and don’t see any change in circumstance and eventually give up. I think that some have had such a hard road, and they know that God loves them but refuse to move forward because of their past. In all these situations, there’s a common thread they are all guilty of, and that’s ignorance. I’m not talking about innocence, which is just not knowing something. Just look at the prefix (ignore) it’s more than not knowing, it’s a refusal to know the truth. Hosea 4:6 exclaims that God’s people in the past suffered from lack of knowledge, and that’s exactly what we are guilty of today! If we know God’s promises for a life living for Him are good and true, why aren’t we living like it? Faith is two dimensional. The first requires persuasion that what God has revealed to you is true. The second requires action, or obedience. If there is something you think is holding you back, confess it to Jesus and move forward knowing He’ll take care of it. If people have disappointed you, ask God to reveal Jesus as He really is to you and search for Him! If you know God’s promises, look for opportunities to put them to practice! The moment you refuse to move forward is the moment you accept defeat.

Extra time in the Word 1 Peter 1

Friday, May 22nd
Written by Bill Scott