Author: Larry Bennett

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Light Your World

“For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.” (Ephesians 5:8-9 NLT)

I have to admit, I am a movie buff. I like all sorts of movies but my preferences fall into two categories, true life stories and, believe it or not, animation. Talking animals just crack me up. I guess that is why I laugh every time I read the story of Balaam’s donkey looking back at Balaam and asking him, “What have I done to you that deserves you beating me three times? (Numbers 22 NLT)

However, there is one thing about animation that cannot be duplicated; it’s the light in the eyes. This last weekend I was watching an animated movie with my granddaughter. I said to her, “Look at the eyes of the animated adults. The animators can reproduce everything just like a live person but the light in the eyes. That can only be given by God.”

But this principle of the “light in the eyes” goes even deeper. God gives every living creature life and it is demonstrated by the light of life that is in their eyes. But He goes even further with His children. He gives us a light that is different from the average creature. “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:7)

The light we now have within us is the light of Christ. It is His life in us that draws others to want to know Him. It’s Christ’s life shown through our eyes that the Holy Spirit uses to draw people to Himself. As the Scripture explains, God could use the rocks to cry out or the trees to sing His glory. But God, in His infinite wisdom, chooses to use us to display “the Light” to the world.

It is the love of Christ in us that is displayed through our life and shown through our eyes that makes us different. It is not our religious performance, Bible knowledge or debate skills that will draw someone to Christ. It is the light of Christ shown through our eyes that will cause someone to get a glimpse of God’s character and nature.

How can we make sure that Christ’s life is shown through our life? The light of Christ will be shown as we love Him with all our heart, our mind and our soul. (Matthew 22:37-39) It is a matter of surrender. As we surrender our rights and expectations, our dreams, and our plans to Him, we are changed into His likeness. It’s often called the great exchange. When we exchange our self-centered life for Christ’s life, a change occurs. The focus of our life is no longer “us”, but our new focus is Christ. We become a reflection of His glory.

That reminds me of the words of a beloved old hymn.

“Oh that will be, glory for me
Glory for me, glory for me.
When by His grace we shall look on His face,
That will be glory, be glory for me.”

But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord, who is the Spirit,makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. (2 Corinthians 3:16-18 NLT)

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Being Awestruck by God

This week I’ve had the privilege of taking morning and evening walks on the beach. I can’t tell you how many times during my lifetime I have taken a walk on the beach, but every time I take a stroll I have been in awe of God’s creation. I am just as awe struck today as I was as a child.

To think that God spoke all of this into existence boggles my mind. He causes the tides to work together with rotation of the earth and with the movement of the sun and moon. The ocean never runs dry and it is filled with all sorts of living creatures. God doesn’t need the fish and game commission to stock the ocean; He abundantly supplies the ocean with all sorts of fish, and it is enough to feed the nations.

If God in His infinite wisdom can manage the oceans of the world, how much more can He guide and direct our life. If He cares so meticulously for the marine life in the depths of the sea, how much more can He care, manage and direct our lives?

To the committed follower of Christ, life is not about being religious and following a set of strict rules. It is about trusting God for every moment of our life. It’s about seeing God in everything. It’s seeing Him in the beauty and wonder of nature, it’s observing Him at work in the events of our life, and in the lives of our loved ones. It’s realizing that open doors are not just happenstance but it’s God at work leading us to the next step in our chance to be light and salt to our world.

Even during those times when we feel that God isn’t hearing our prayers, He is in our midst, leading us to new depths of fellowship and understanding of who He is. Just when we think we really know God, He appears with a new experience to teach us something about His character and nature that leaves us awe struck. Then that new knowledge enables us to be a “sweet aroma” to others.

Paul gives us a glimpse of this principle in 2 Corinthians 2: 3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”(NAS)

The Bottom Line
To a believer, life is deeper than “making lemonade out of life’s lemons.” It’s about discovering the depths of Jesus Christ in the midst of our problems. God’s desire for us is to be able to look through the challenges of life, put them aside for a moment, and become awestruck by His love for you.

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One of God’s Gifts

The Lord is the source of all good things. He is not only the sustainer of life but He is also the giver of life. He gives us our physical life, but He also gives us a quality of life. This quality of life is directly related to our ability to choose. One of God’s gifts is “the ability to make our own choices.”

God gives his children a instinctive ability, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to make proper choices. He sovereignly guides our life, but at the same time, He also fills our life with choices. For example, we can choose leisure over labor, entertainment over education, doubt over truth and fear over confidence.

Or we can choose to believe that “we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us” (Phil. 4:13). We have within us the power of the risen Christ. Can you think of a power greater than the power to raise the dead?

Our failures do not define us. Our failures give us the opportunity to draw on that supernatural source of life and strength. That enables us to choose just the opposite, we now choose labor over leisure, education over entertainment, truth over doubt and confidence over fear.

The majority of mistakes I have made in my life were based on wrong choices. Even when things fell apart, due to no fault of my own, the responsibility of recovery was up to me, based on my choices. I could have chosen to live as a victim or I could choose to set my mind in a new direction.

God’s gift of allowing us to make choices and to “choose life” is a magnificent gift. He doesn’t just birth us into his family and then send us out into the world to be devoured by the wolves. He sends us out equipped with the mind of Christ which helps us make good decisions (1 Cor. 2:16). He then fills us with the Holy Spirit who gives us discernment that will eventually lead us to truth (John 16:7-15).

The Bottom Line

As followers of Christ, we have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices – starting today. God has endowed us with the power and ability to choose life. It starts with using the gift that God has given us, the gift of choice. Change your thinking and you will change your life. If you don’t like how things are, change it. You’re not a rock or a robot, you are a child of God who has the gift to choose. It all begins with the power of choice. Begin today to change the way you think and make choices that reflects the real you.

“The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves.” William Shakespeare

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The Believer and Conflict

After his resurrection Jesus appeared to his disciples several times. One of the encounters occurred on a beach, after they had been fishing all night. They were close to shore and noticed Jesus on the beach; he was cooking breakfast for them.

After they had finished eating Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Most of us are familiar with this discourse between Jesus and Peter. Peter responded all three times that he truly loved Jesus. Jesus told Peter to “tend my lambs, take care of my sheep, and feed my sheep.” (John 21)

There is plenty to learn from the three questions Jesus ask, but I think the deeper and more profound words of Jesus is what He said to Peter next.

“I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.” Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. (John 21:18-19 NLT)

Jesus’ point to Peter is that his life from this point forward was going to be difficult. Jesus is telling Peter that there will come a time that he will be taken where he doesn’t want to go, and he will be treated like he doesn’t want to be treated, and then he will die.

The deeper message behind this foretelling of Peter’s future is not just Jesus telling Peter how he is going to die. The deeper message is Jesus telling Peter how is going to live. In a way, Jesus was telling him that life is not all about “Peter”. His life now is about a bigger story. Peter’s life is now about his mission, his mission of bringing the gospel to the nations. With that task comes a life of “being led about where you don’t want to go.”

Life is not about being the main player, but it’s about being a part of the big picture. In other words, life is not about creating a plan and knowing what is going to happen every season of your life. Life is about conflict, difficult days, disappointment and failure. But God has a purpose in all of that. He wants to lead us to the point of “If you want to keep your life you must be willing to lose it.”

God wants us to get to the point of surrendering every aspect of our life to Him, so we can give our life away. That’s where radical Christianity comes in. When we let go of our life, we will find it.

That’s how a highly trained Physician can leave a financially lucrative career and become a missionary doctor in the bush of a 3rd world country. It’s how a professional school teacher can quit her secure job with a good salary and benefits and go teach at risk, inner city children in the ghetto of a major city.

The issue is not “are you willing to be a missionary.” The issue is are you willing to lay down your life, your dreams and your plans at Jesus’ feet and give him a blank pad, and have him write your story as He sees fit.

The Bottom Line
All good stories and movies have an unpredictable and unseen surprise ending. It’s that conflict and tension that etches the story in your mind. Our life is one big story being written by the God. That means we are going to be led into situations that are uncomfortable, unpredictable, and like Peter, we may be led to places that we don’t want to go.

As a committed follower of Christ we must remember that life is about faith and trust. It’s trusting God in every situation, and even sometimes, being led down a path where we don’t want to go. Be encouraged because God passionately loves you and He always has a purpose for everything He allows in your life.

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Be Still and I Will Part the Waters for You

“He your teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you. “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right of the left.” (Isaiah 30)

God still speaks to his children by the voice of the Holy Spirit. God speaks to us through a “still small voice” and most often through the Scriptures. Sometimes a biblical passage will be the key to our deliverance. Whether it’s through the Scriptures or that still small voice, before we can hear His voice of direction, God requires something of us: We are to stand still and wait for Him to act.

Stand still and wait for Him to act. This is one of those principles that make easy preaching but difficult to implement. Somehow we think that our experience qualifies us to go ahead of God. Besides, God needs our help doesn’t He? I don’t think so. If we take the sum total of all our good days, it would not equal one of God’s moments of genius. God’s timing and method is always the best for our life.

Joshua was one of the few Israelites who were able to enter the promise land. As Joshua was leading the Israelites across the Jordan River God was saying to them, ‘When you get to the water, plant your feet in the water and just stand there. Be still, rest. Just wait for me to act and I will part the waters for you.’

The Hebrew word for “stand still” means to,“stop all activity, cease all striving”. I am sure some of the men must have said, “Let’s build a quick bridge. With the amount of workers we have we can have a functional bridge in a few days”. Some of the women must have said, “I can’t let my children stand in the water, they might catch cold. “

But in spite of all of the suggestions, and the grumbling, Joshua led the people to obedience and they waited on God, did just as God told them, and the waters departed and they crossed over on dry land.

The problem isn’t that God is not speaking, but the problem is that we are not being still long enough to hear His voice. In other words, we lack the patience to wait, and lack the faith that God will answer.

What is God saying to us through this passage? Stop all activity, cease all striving. Be still, rest…just wait for me to act and I will part the waters for you!

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)

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The Blessing of Struggle

How often have you heard the phrase “trouble is your best friend”? No matter how often I hear that phrase; there is something within me that rebels to the very core of my being. Who in his right mind would welcome difficulty?

Whether we like it or not, there is perceived value in struggle. If you are a salesman you must hear an overwhelming number of “no’s” before you get to the “yes’s”. A baseball player endures more failure than successes at the plate. As a matter of fact, an all-star baseball player fails getting on base 70% of the time. I have read where Thomas Edison failed over one thousand times before he successfully invented the light bulb.

Life is about successfully dealing with failure. It’s about getting up off the ground, dusting yourself off and getting back to the task. It sometimes means you do those things you don’t naturally enjoy doing. I read a quote by Success Magazine’s editor Daren Hardy. He said, “If there is a job related task you really don’t want to do, it’s probably the very thing that you should be doing. “

Properly applying lessons learned from failure is a key element to our success. That is true in our day to day challenges, but it is especially true if we want consistent growth in our Christian life.

I have a hunch that most believers think the primary struggle in the Christian life is learning to overcome the devil. But the real battle is surrendering our life to Christ’s control. The ultimate goal is to allow Jesus to live His life through us.

Listed below are four areas of personal struggle that leads us to personal growth. Successfully navigating these four areas of conflict allows us to let go of our “self-effort” mentality and live a more Christ-centered life.

Opposition – Grace can only be experienced when we encounter opposition. How do you respond when someone says something critical or unkind? Or as we like to say in the South, how do you respond when someone “smarts off to you?” Are you reactive, and let them have it, or do you draw on God’s grace in those moments of conflict? Roy Hession writes:

“Every person who crosses us, every person who discourages us is God’s way of breaking us. It creates a deeper channel in us for the life of Christ. The only life that pleases God is His life, never our life. Our self-centered life is the exact opposite of His. We can never be filled with His life unless we are prepared for God to bring our life constantly to death.”

Conflict is God’s way of revealing our flesh. When backed in a corner, what’s inside will come to the surface.

Forgiveness – In order for us to practice forgiveness there must first be hurt or betrayal. Even though God does not create conflict, He allows it in our life to learn the grace of forgiveness. Without practicing the continual act of forgiveness we can never experience the depths of Jesus Christ. Biblical forgiveness says, “I forgive you and release you from the debt of ever making it right with me. “

Hurt – We can never know healing until we have been hurt. The deeper the personal hurt, the deeper the healing. God’s touch goes deeper than the forgiveness of the offender; it creates a healing in us that can only happen when hurt is present. When God allows us to experience deep hurt, He is preparing to do a work deep within us that will result in a new level of intimacy with Him.

Weakness – The opposite of strength is weakness. Weakness must be present in order for us to realize that in and of ourselves we have no strength. As the Scripture says, “The joy of the Lord is our strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) When we live out of our weakness we have an unseen strength that allows us to do “all things through Christ that strengthens us. “ (Philippians 4:13)

Weakness does not mean that we are weak and impotent people, it means we are willing to lay down our self-strength for Christ’s strength. I like to describe this kind of strength as “an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove.”

The Bottom line
Yes indeed, trouble is your best friend. Trouble properly received allows us to practice God’s grace and eventually come to the place that nothing or no one can offend us. Trouble allows us to forgive our offenders and keep the debt account at zero. Trouble gives God the opportunity to go deep in the healing process when we are hurt or betrayed. And then the Lord caps off the process by giving us the opportunity to trade in our weakness for His strength.

God in His mercy allows us to go through trouble, and when we do, we are never alone. He is always walking through the process with us. He lovingly endures the suffering with us in order that we might have a greater capacity for His life. During this process we realize that Christ in us makes us complete. He is truly all we need.

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Repeating the Cycle

I have been reading through the Bible books of Kings and Chronicles. I must admit, at times the reading became quite laborious. In these books are hundreds of names I can’t pronounce, and genealogies I can’t follow. I was reading it by faith, trusting that somewhere in all these names was something that God wanted to show me. Then, just like everything God does or touches, He reveals an obvious truth.

I learned that one of His reasons for listing the history of the multiple failures of the Jewish Kings was to show us what happens to those who stop following the Lord. I also saw that when the leaders followed the Lord, the country prospered and even their enemies feared them.

God told David if he and all the ancestral Kings would follow the Lord and obey his statues, then God would prosper and bless His people. “If your sons are careful of their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.” (1 Kings 2:4 NASB)

Of all the leaders listed in the long history of Israel, most of them did not follow the Lord. The result was financial ruin, bondage to foreign Kings and servitude. We see a universal spiritual principle at work here. ”When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn”. (Proverbs 29:2 KJV)

There is also another principle at work. It is a basic principle of leadership which states, “Everything rises and falls on leadership. As the leaders go, so goes the people.” We see this principle at work throughout the Scripture and in present history.

Every time I read through these books of the Bible I come to the same conclusion – what is wrong with these people? Can’t they see the pattern? Didn’t the priest and prophets teach and warn them that they were repeating the same sin patterns as their forefathers? Talking about dumb like a sheep?

However, it didn’t take long to see a similar pattern in our own country. We are also dumb like sheep. The Scriptures reveal that we are no different than the Israelite’s. We follow that same circle of apostasy. (We are prosperous then we enter into Backsliding, Idolatry, Permissiveness, Catastrophe, Bondage, and Repentance.) It is as the unbelieving philosopher Hegel proclaimed, “The experience and history teach us that people and governments never have learned anything from history.”

The Bottom Line
The story of the Kings in the Bible shows the cruel, bloody and brutal reality of turning away from the Lord and going our own way. I am reminded of how subtle and gradual “turning away from God” occurs. It’s never sudden, but done in small gradual compromises, until one day we wake up and our worldview has become secular and our belief system is tainted by the world system. We wonder where did our passion for God go? Or, why am I so cold toward the things of God?

If there was ever a time for God’s people to do a Spiritual inventory, it’s today. If we are not intentional about our daily quest to “abide in Christ”, then we are destined to repeat the sins of the past.

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.(Acts 17:27)

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Attitude

Years ago I picked up a saying from my military training in the Air National Guard; “Your attitude determines you altitude.” This is one of those truths that stick with you throughout your life because having the right attitude impacts every stage of your life.

No matter what season of life you are in, your attitude is a key player in your level of contentment. Attitude is more important than wealth, education, good looks, popularity and almost anything else the world may consider important.

As a follower of Christ, your attitude is an indicator of your level of trust and devotion to God. Having a vast knowledge of Scripture will not necessarily make you a successful believer. Some of the most miserable people I have met are Christians. They weren’t miserable because their faith didn’t work, they were miserable because their attitude was rotten.

If you are a business person, your attitude will determine your success, but it will also see you through a tough business climate. If you think you can’t succeed or make it through the tough times, then your attitude will be your downfall.

As committed followers of Jesus, it is important to maintain an attitude that reflects our dependence and trust in a sovereign God. Knowing that He will guide and direct us is an important element in maintaining inner peace. Many times we can’t control our circumstances, or what others say about us or do to us, but we can control our attitude. Attitude is always a result of your reaction to a given situation. We can choose to trust God, and believe He is in control or we can choose to be fearful and hopeless.

When you live with a Christ-centered worldview, the normal response to any crisis is to let go and trust God to give you wisdom and peace. By trusting God in every situation, we develop an attitude of dependence. We have this inner peace that everything is going to turn out right – even though we can’t see the end result. Why? Because we know God is in control.

The Holy Spirit allowed Paul to use the word “Abba” when referring to God in Galatians. Abba is a term of intimate affection that denotes “Daddy”. Our heavenly Father is not only our God, but He is also our daddy/protector who loves and cares for every area of our life. “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!” Galatians 4:6

Because we are loved, cared for and watched over in every way by our loving God, we should quickly deal with any attitude of discouragement and despair. Remember, your attitude determines your altitude.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NASB)

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Mercy and Destiny

Have you ever considered how God’s mercy and destiny are connected?

All through Scripture we see a pattern of God’s mercy being extended to an individual or to a nation because He has a divine purpose or destiny for that nation or individual. We see this pattern repeated during every period of history from Adam to the present day.

A clear example of this principle is Romans 9:10-12:

…When he (Abraham) married Rebekah, she gave birth to twins. 11But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes; he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, “Your older son will serve your younger son.” (NLT)

Again in the New Testament we see this principle at work in our lives;

“For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus. “ (2 Timothy 1:9 NLT)

So when we consider God’s mercy it’s important for us to see the bigger picture. When God extends His mercy it is directly attached to His foreknowledge and His divine plan for us. Why didn’t God just utterly destroy the Israelites when they continually erected shrines to foreign Gods? It was because of His mercy and its attachment to His plan for Israel.

When God extends mercy to us, it is because in God’s scheme of things, we are a player in His kingdom plans. I have to admit; I can’t fully explain or understand this attribute of God. But when I consider that in Christ I have been chosen to have mercy extended to me because God considers me to be a component in His kingdom plan, I am overwhelmed by His love and commitment to me.

He allowed me to be born into a committed Christian family, to hear the gospel at an early age and to live most all of my days walking with Him and serving Him. It’s all because of His mercy, a mercy that is attached to a plan He had for me.

Some of you reading this devotional didn’t have the privilege of being raised in a Christian home and were not exposed to the gospel until you were an adult. That makes God’s mercy even more amazing. That means that Jesus found you and then in His mercy pursued you, and then He called you to Himself in order to be a part of His kingdom plan.

Are we putting a low value on God’s mercy by not having a proper response to His love? That’s why we should take a close look at our lives, and examine our commitment to loving Him with all our heart, our mind and our soul. If we have a proper understanding of God’s mercy toward us, then we realize that God has chosen us to be a kingdom player. Mercy is more than God’s kindness and long-suffering, it is His clear indication that we are called, at this time in history, to fulfill our role in His kingdom.

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe…”(Ephesians 1:18-19 NAS)

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Brokenness 101

If you are a committed follower of Jesus you have probably discovered by now that Brokenness is your friend not your enemy. Brokenness removes all those things from our life that hinders the indwelling life of Christ from being manifested in our life. Brokenness is a position of spiritual weakness that enables us to be fully engaged in God’s strength.

Brokenness is both an act and a position. It becomes an act when we intentionally and deliberately surrender our rights and expectations. It is the process of giving up on our own strength and placing our trust in the living Christ within us. It becomes a position when we experientially begin to realize that we are “made complete in Christ.” (Colossians 2:10) It is coming to an understanding that Christ is enough.

Brokenness teaches us that we no longer have to impress people with who we are, where we have been and what we can do. It is being able to rest, and be so confident in our identity that we don’t have to dominate the conversation. Or, in the case of a passive person, we don’t have to feel so insecure that we remain silent.

Frequently, during an Exchanged Life Conference , one of the most often asked questions would go something like this; “If I surrender my children or my job to the Lord, does that mean I am giving Him permission to take this from me? ” My obvious answer to the question was “yes”. To some, this answer would drive them further away from accepting the virtues of brokenness. To others, the “lights would come on.” They understood that giving God every aspect of our life was in their best interest.

Brokenness becomes a paradox because you “must give up in order to receive”, you must “let go in order to keep”. In God’s economy of things, trusting Him means that we surrender all our goals, dreams, and plans to Him. It’s embracing the biblical principle that God has a plan and destiny for us, and it begins with laying our lives at His feet.

Does that mean we have no choices in life? No, just the contrary, the Holy Spirit now directs our decisions, anoints our plans and then goes before us preparing our way. It’s living day by day with the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:16, Ephesians 4:24).

What’s the point? You have heard the old saying, “You may be the only Christ someone ever sees”. Brokenness releases the life of the risen Savior so that the world will get a glimpse of the Christ in you.

When I am lifted up from the earth, then all of humanity will be drawn to Me. (John 12:32 (The Voice)