You Can Overcome!

Great Service yesterday! Thank you for being obedient to the Holy Spirit's direction for your life. God is building a dream and team to go forward for years to come. Thank you for making Calvary your home....you are loved in Christ!

'...If God is for us, who can be against us?' Romans 8:31 NKJV

Some of the world's greatest people have faced the world's greatest challenges, but have overcome them. Cripple a man with polio, and you have Sir Walter Scott. Lock a man in prison, and you have John Bunyan. Raise a man in abject poverty, and you have Abraham Lincoln. Subject a man to bitter religious prejudice, and you have Benjamin Disraeli. Strike a man down with paralysis, and you have Franklin Roosevelt. Have someone born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Marian Anderson and George Washington Carver. Make a man the first child to survive in an impoverished Italian family of 18, and you have Enrico Caruso. Have a man born to parents who survived a Nazi concentration camp, paralyze him from the waist down when he's four years old, and you have the incomparable violinist Itzhak Perlman. Call a man a slow learner and mentally challenged, write him off as beyond education, and you have Albert Einstein. Helen Keller was born blind and deaf, yet she graduated from college with highest honors and impacted the world. Margaret Thatcher, England's first and only woman Prime Minister, lived upstairs over her father's grocery store. For a while her childhood home had no running water and no indoor plumbing. Golda Meir, Israel's first and only woman Prime Minister, was a divorced grandmother from Milwaukee. What do these people teach us? That success doesn't depend on our circumstances, but on overcoming our circumstances. And with God on our side we can do it! Paul, one of the world's great overcomers, wrote, 'If God is for us, who can be against us?'

Five things to Change Your Life

'Nothing can ever separate us from His love.' Romans 8:38 NLT

Paul asks five life-changing questions you'd do well to think about:
(1) 'If God is for us, who can ever be against us?' (Romans 8:31 NLT) The presence of God tilts the scales forever in our direction. Really, who can hurt us? (2) 'Since God did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won't God... also give us everything else?' (Romans 8:32 NLT) Would God save our souls then leave us to fend for ourselves? Would He address our eternal needs and ignore our earthly ones? Of course not! (3) 'Who dares accuse us...? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with Himself.' (Romans 8:33 NLT) Every voice that accuses you, including your own, means nothing in the court of Heaven. God's acceptance trumps man's rejection. (4) 'Who then will condemn us?... the One who died for us... is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us.' (Romans 8:34 NLT) Let your accusers rise up and speak against you. Jesus, your defense attorney, silences them. Why? Because His grace covers you. (5) 'Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love?' (Romans 8:35 NLT) Paul answers his own question: 'Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away...nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.' (Romans 8:38-39 NLT) Isn't that great?

Stand on His Promises

'He always does exactly what He says.' 2 Corinthians 1:19 TLB

Ever had a friend break a promise? The check doesn't come, the repairman doesn't show up, your date doesn't call? Count on it, people will let you down. But God won't: 'He always does exactly what He says. He...fulfils all...[His] promises.' (2 Corinthians 1:19-20 TLB) Knowing that enables you to keep walking by faith while you wait for them to be fulfilled. James MacDonald says: 'It's this not-knowing that crushes us. We doubt...worry...despair...falter and fail...If we knew how this was going to play out we'd be ok. We...can take a bad day...month...year...or decade...as long as we know how it will end. A health crisis...a question about your marriage...uncertainty over a child...we all have areas...where we need to hold on to what God has said... He knows what He promised, He can't lie, and He can't forget. He'll deliver on time. Who else can make promises like that? Now I wish I could tell you it always figures out perfectly in our lifetimes, but I'd be lying...You cannot make sense of [His] promises...with this life only. You must factor in the reality of eternity... Eternity brings it all together...eternal life...and the assurance of Heaven are what make His promises so precious.' Victor Frankl, who survived the horrors of the Holocaust, said, 'A weak faith is weakened by predicaments and catastrophes, whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.' A Sunday school class was memorizing Psalm 23 and little Tommy couldn't get beyond the first verse. On the big day he stepped up to the microphone, grinned at the audience and announced, 'The Lord is my Shepherd - and that's all I know!' And it's all you need to know for now.

You're Mission!

'Go! I am sending you.' Luke 10:3 NIV

Jesus sent His disciples out on a mission saying, 'Do not take a purse or bag...and do not greet anyone on the road.' (Luke 10:4 NIV) Observe three things He emphasized: (1) 'Do not take a purse' - no hoarding! God will bless the man or woman who says, 'Every penny You give me above my needs, Lord, I'll use to fulfill Your purposes.' Imagine standing at the judgment seat of Christ with your riches uninvested, your assignment unfulfilled, and your sphere of influence unreached for Christ. What could you possibly say? (2) 'Do not take a...bag' - no excess baggage! God's Word says, '...let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.' (Hebrews 12:1 NLT) Whatever can get your attention can influence you, and whatever can keep your attention can master you. Satan dreads the completion of your assignment, so you must fight to keep your focus. (3) 'Do not greet anyone on the road' - don't waste time! Question any relationship that doesn't contribute to your destiny. Paul was single-minded on this issue: '...if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him...' (2 Thessalonians 3:14 NKJV) The hour is too late and the need too great. In the old days, in certain agricultural states in America they closed the schools for a few weeks and everyone was sent into the fields to gather the harvest. Why? Because to wait is to be too late!

How's Your Prayer Life?

'...it is time to seek the Lord...' Hosea 10:12 NKJV

The place of prayer is where you meet with God to be instructed, corrected, cleansed, loved, built up and prepared to do His will. It can be anywhere, but it must be somewhere! It can be anytime, but it must be a set time. Without prayer, what do you have to draw on? You'll work harder and harder and accomplish less and less because you're operating in your own strength. But after you've prayed you'll struggle less and accomplish more because you're operating in God's strength. If you're spending hours watching television but say you've no time to pray, 'It is time to seek the Lord.' If you're living comfortably with sins that once troubled you, 'It is time to seek the Lord.' If you're speaking words of bitterness towards someone who hurt you, 'It is time to seek the Lord.' If having material things consumes so much of your energy that there's none left for God and your family, 'It is time to seek the Lord.' The New Testament church grew so fast that the apostles found themselves with no time to pray. So they said, '...It is not right...' (Acts 6:2 NCV) That's where you must start! If you've forsaken the place of prayer it will show up in your attitudes and actions. What did the apostles do? They said, '...we will give ourselves continually to prayer...' (Acts 6:4 KJV) And look what happened: '...the Word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied...' (Acts 6:7 KJV) If you've come this far with little prayer, inconsistent prayer, or no prayer, think how far you'll go when you begin to pray.

Your Heavenly Body

'...How are the dead raised? With what kind of body...?' 1 Corinthians 15:35 NIV

Ever wonder what your heavenly body will be like? The Bible gives us three answers to the questions, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?' First, it speaks of anatomy: '...Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.' (1 Corinthians 15:39 NIV) Just as fish are designed to handle the pressures of the ocean and birds are designed to fly, your heavenly body will be custom-made for eternity. (Imagine travelling not merely at the speed of light, but the speed of thought!) Next, it speaks of astronomy: 'The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead...' (1 Corinthians 15:41-42 NIV) There will be degrees of honor and differences of reward when we get to Heaven. Your service now is what determines your status then 'God "will give to each person according to what he has done."' (Romans 2:6 NIV) Finally, it speaks of agriculture: '...it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.' (1 Corinthians 15:43 NIV) It's said the old Saxon word for cemetery means 'God's acre.' How wonderful; Christians don't get buried, they get planted!

There's a bulletin board in the Mayo Clinic which reads: 'Cancer is limited: it cannot cripple love, it cannot shatter hope, it cannot erode faith, it cannot eat away peace, it cannot destroy confidence, it cannot kill friendship, it cannot shut out memories, it cannot silence courage, it cannot invade the soul, it cannot reduce eternal life, it cannot quench the spirit, and it cannot lessen the power of the resurrection.'

The Effect of Praise

'My mouth is filled with Your praise...all day long.' Psalm 71:8 NAS

In 2007, after battling leukemia, pianist/song-writer Roger Bennett died. He thought he was in remission but the disease returned with a vengeance. He wrote on his website: 'Our enemy stalks us exactly the way the Bible describes, as a roaring lion. He hides in the bushes waiting for any sign of weakness. Then he strikes. He didn't strike me physically. He struck a more critical part - my joy...confidence...and hope. Every thought I turned towards Heaven bounced back like it was made of brass. Every time I tried to look on the bright side, I ended up imagining a dark future. Then he threw his most effective dart - doubt. "You call yourself a Christian. What a hypocrite! You're more afraid than ever...more filled with despair. So much for your faith, Mr. Gospel Singer!" I believed everything he said. I tried everything I knew to pull out of it...I thought if I dozed off it would pass...but the clock seemed to move in slow motion. Sleep was nowhere near. I tried to lose myself in the Bible, but the words blurred and I couldn't make sense of them.' Then Bennett had an epiphany, as he thought about Paul and Silas in prison. 'They didn't despair,' he wrote. 'They sang praises and that became their weapon. One after another...old songs came to me and I sang them to my empty room. It wasn't a great performance, but it may be the most powerful blessing I've received.' The Psalmist wrote, 'My mouth is filled with Your praise...all day long.'(Psalm 71:8 NAS) Try it. It's a strategy that works!