Good day dear friends, we had a super Sunday (we can say that without being sued by the NFL, right?) with our worship services. We had a mini-hymnsing to affirm our faith, at 8:30 we celebrated a Baptism and being the first Sunday of the month we had the celebration of Holy Communion. At 11 o'clock we also threw out footballs and celebrated America's big day of football. The theme of the sermon was from Romans 8 called, "God Wants You To Win!"
Here is the study guide for today: Monday: We find in Numbers (You think you never find any good stuff in a book named Numbers??) 13:30-33 a story about faith and winning. Please find and read that passage to see what was involved and how attitude based on God’s altitude blessed those involved in this powerful story.
Here is that passage from Numbers 13:30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it." 31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we." 32 So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, "The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. 33 There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."
Your attitude determines your altitude. A well-known saying and a true assessment for life. In this familiar passage the Israelites have come to the place where they must fight to enter into the promised land. Keep in mind the Israelites had been walking with God, seeing God do incredible things and even heard God promise to them this new land yet the majority of the spies who went in to assess the situation in this new land came back with fear and doubt. They said they were going up against some huge people who made them look like grasshoppers. In other words, let's give up! Let's either surrender to them and become their slaves or turn back and return to the land where we were slaves before! What a choice! Yet we sometimes face those same decisions in our daily lives in the things we come up against. Do we face them and try to overcome them trusting God or do we surrender and head back? Do you have "Grasshopper Faith" or "More Than Conquerors" faith?
Our text for yesterday came from Romans 8:31-39 and our faith is an overcomers' faith. We can face all things and overcome all things with faith in God. God wants us to win for ours is a faith of neverending life and a life, if lived in Christ, filled with abundant joy.
PRAYER: God give me an overcomer's faith. Let me no longer see myself as a "grasshopper" but as one who can be more than a conqueror. I receive in Jesus' name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day!
e.v.
