Fast Track to Victory

If you’ve ever seen a diseased palm, it is not a pretty sight. Scales may cling to the undersides of the fronds, eventually causing the fronds yellow. When the scale spreads to more and more fronds, your plant may look like a goner.

You hope pesticides will do the trick. You apply it a few times. If that doesn’t work, your best solution may be to prune. Cut off all the diseased fronds and burn them, or at least dispose of them so they can’t infect the rest of the plant. If you do this when new fronds are coming in, your plant won’t even look bald!

This situation teaches us a lesson about how God makes all things new.

Let’s face it, in our lives there is disease –m physical disease and disease of the heart like being heartbroken, depressed, or even captive to alcohol, drugs, or foods. These problems can overwhelm us, so much so, that no doctor, psychologist, or therapy program can help us.

We may come to view ourselves as sickly, ugly, neglected or abandoned — as an eyesore which should be uprooted from the planet Earth. But God can prune.

He cuts out the evil. He can remove the dead and diseased things in our life that are robbing us of health, vitality and the new life he has for us. When he does, we can smell the roses in life … again.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

For more practical lessons based on biblical principles, check out Fast Track to Victory, A Christian Guidebook by Cheryl Rogers. Get a preview here.

Ever since man sinned in the Garden of Eden, we’ve been hiding from God. No longer innocent, we may no longer feel comfortable in the presence of a perfect and all-knowing God.

Running from God brought a lot of new challenges, however. Challenges we really weren’t — and aren’t — equipped to face. For example, we can feel mighty empty without that relationship with God that we are meant to have. We can try to fill that emptiness with a lot of things, things of the world, and find ourselves addicted to alcohol, drugs, pornography — or even to computers and certain foods. We can make a god of another person, expecting them to make us happy and fulfill us, only to find our relationship shipwrecked when reality strikes.

God is the giver of all good things, even our relationships, and if we don’t recognize or understand that, we may have to learn the hard way.

The devil has spread a lot of lies about God and it is understandable if we are concerned about what is to become of us, seeing we are not perfect like he is. But when we earnestly seek God through his Word, this grim view of our world changes.

God is love. (1 John 4:8) He sent his one and only son that we have life and have it to the full. (John 3:16 and John 10:10) God wants us to choose who we will serve. (Joshua 24:!5)

When God’s truth shines that new light on our circumstances, all the running and hiding seems pretty pointless. Our heart’s cry may be: Come, Lord Jesus. We’ve gotten ourselves into a bit of a mess down here. We need you.

For more Bible-based wisdom, read Fast Track to Victory, A Christian Guidebook by Cheryl Rogers. This non-denominational book shares truths that set you free to live a victorious Christian life.

We may find passages in the Bible, on occasion, that concern us. We may not understand how a loving God could allow certain things to happen. Or we may wonder why he chose to do something.

It could lead us to doubt the Bible, or even drive a wedge between us and God. Whenever such a passage unnerves us, the best thing to do is to pray to God for an explanation.

Just such a question arose over 2 Kings 2:23 & 24, so I took my question to God. He answered in his own timing, but he DID answer. I am sharing the answer here so you and your loved ones may be blessed.

The story involves Elisha and some little children who taunted him about his baldness. It may seem like a minor thing, but the children obviously angered the prophet God was using in a mighty way in Israel. Elisha cursed the children and two bears came and attacked them. The King James says “there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.” We can rightfully ask why did God allow this to happen to these children, when the offense was relatively minor. After all, how many times have we all let a few things slip that were not quite right?

The answer: Elisha had a relationship with God and was doing God’s work. God is a loyal and faithful friend and would not allow Elisha to be treated that way, not even by children. The analogy that comes to mind is that of two buddies who are peacefully minding their own business when some other folks come around and start insulting one of them. When the insulted party rises up in anger and strikes back, would not his partner rise up with him? Later the friend may suggest fighting was overkill, but in the heat of the moment he will stand by his friend. God is such a friend to us when we have a relationship with him.

In this case, we can only assume the children do not have such a relationship with God. In any event, they have erred in violating one of God’s commands: “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” 1 Chronicles 16:22

In the Old Testament we may find several examples of conduct such as Elisha’s which we, today, find disturbing. Least we believe it is the heart of God to act in such a manner, Jesus sets the record straight. When James and John asked if they should command fire to come down from heaven on their enemies like Elijah did, Jesus replied: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
“For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” Luke 9:55,56

Would you like to grow in your relationship with God? Check out my skinny devotions book, Fast Track to Victory, A Christian Guidebook. It will help encourage you to spend some time with God daily.

Have you ever felt misunderstood? That others just really had the wrong idea about why you were doing something?

Maybe you wanted to explain yourself, but when you did it didn’t help. Or maybe you tried and just found yourself stumbling over words and you just gave up.

You aren’t alone. Unfortunately, sometimes this misunderstanding messes up our relationships. There may be arguments, even fights. The best thing to do in such situation is to talk to God — preferably before problems escalate.

Whenever you feel something may lead to conflict or misunderstandings, stop and pray first. Tell God your heart about the issue. Ask him to weed out anything not of him. Ask him to make you right with him, first and foremost. Then ask him to let others recognize your heart. Ask God to allow others to see your motives are pure. Pray against any spirits of misunderstanding, confusion, bitterness, unclear or poor communication, strife or conflict — against all evil to cover your bases.

The Bible tells us “Jesus is Lord of all” in Acts 10:36, so when we are right with God we can trust he will make things right with everyone else, too.

“When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Proverbs 16:7

There may be some complications. Not everyone has the right motives and they may not understand you or want to cooperate with God. But you can be at peace knowing your own heart. You can have peace knowing God approves of your conduct. Isn’t that the most important thing, anyway?

Get more practical help for your life with my devotions book, Fast Track to Victory, A Christian Guidebook, a 40-lesson book packed with biblical wisdom to help you meet the daily challenges of life. Fast Track to Victory is written in a non-denominational format and quotes the King James Bible.

Many of us go through life wearing the wrong shoes — figuratively speaking. It’s as if we put on our shoes — without socks — and we’re walking around with the leather rubbing against our sore feet, causing blisters.

That’s just the way religion is with many of us. We don’t like the sock rule. The socks are too hot, make our feet sweat, make the shoes too tight, have holes in them anyway, or — you fill in the blank.

So we figure we’ll put on our shoes without socks and just take a few steps. Some of us keep going and going until we have to stop, take off our shoes and give our aching feet time to heal.

With religion, many of us walk away because of hurts, because we just don’t seem to fit in, or because we know we can’t obey all of its rules. Religion is an institution and unfortunately it can distract us from the one it’s intended to serve: Our maker.

Unfortunately, it can make what should be simple a complicated ordeal. God is our maker, our spiritual father. He knows all of us and he wants us to know him. So when we reach out to our creator sincerely, with all our hearts, we can expect him to hear our prayers and answer them. We can expect to have a relationship with him.

The Bible says: “ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13

When we have a relationship with God, we can rely on God to direct us to a church with the right fit.