23 June 2019
Two-Minute Features | 30 June 2019 | 16 June 2019

Believing God Wants Us to Have Good Things (TMF:1160)

Friday, June 28, 2019
Peace to Live By: Believing God Wants Us to Have Good Things (TMF:1160) - Daniel Litton
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       We don’t believe God wants us to have this or that because we don’t have it, and therefore, God doesn’t help us because we don’t believe that he wants to. Again, Jesus said in Matthew 8:13, "Let it be done for you as you have believed” (ESV). We have to ‘believe’ first. We have to believe good is going to happen for us if we actually expect God to work on our behalf. Going back to James, he also told us, recall, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8, ESV). Notice how this verse says that it is us who have to draw near to God. It doesn’t say, God will draw near to us first, and then we can draw near to him. No, James tells us that we have to take the initiative. And so it is with speaking God’s will over our lives. We speak God’s Word, and believe he will do what he says he wants to do, and then this allows God to work and act on our behalf. But bear in mind, and be careful that you are not expecting God to correct your issue or give you your heart’s desire right away with everything.

Creating A List of Verses for Our Problems (TMF:1159)

Thursday, June 27, 2019
Peace to Live By: Creating A List of Verses for Our Problems (TMF:1159) - Daniel Litton
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       Let’s say we go to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. That’s a good place to go when discussing marriage. Verse 2 says, “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (ESV). So, here, in the most basic sense, we learn that if a person feels that he or she needs to be married in life, that it is in fact God’s will for that person to get married. That’s pretty encouraging. I might also add verse 35 to my list, which says the same thing in another way. And I might add verse 37 which says that I can be married to whomever I wish, only in the Lord. So, we can add these verses to our list. Once we have a completed list, we then can speak this list between ourselves and God in prayer. And having this list of verses that addresses our particular problem or desire also encourages us, in our minds, to believe that God wants what we want, because at the heart of a lot of our problems in life is unbelief. We don’t believe God wants us to have this or that because we don’t have it, and therefore, God doesn’t help us because we don’t believe that he wants to.

Considering Our Motives When Speaking (TMF:1158)

Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Peace to Live By: Considering Our Motives When Speaking (TMF:1158) - Daniel Litton
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       A person may want to have a problem-free life (don’t we all), but certainly that is not God’s will. James told us, and warned us, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3, ESV). Just as we shouldn’t ask God according to wrong motives, we should not take his Word and believe on it for wrong things either. So, when we have something we want for our ourselves, which we believe is God’s will for us to have, how do we speak God’s will over our lives? How do we speak the Scriptures? Let’s say you want to have good success with a person of the opposite sex, and eventually get married someday. Well, the key here is that you go through the Bible and you find verses that talk about this matter. Let’s say we go to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. That’s a good place to go when discussing marriage. Verse 2 says, “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (ESV). So, here, in the most basic sense, we learn that if a person feels that he or she needs to be married in life, that it is in fact God’s will for that person to get married. That’s pretty encouraging.

Calling Good Things Into Existence, Part 2 (TMF:1157)

Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Peace to Live By: Calling Good Things Into Existence, Part 2 (TMF:1157) - Daniel Litton
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       God has given us his Word in our lives, and we can take his Word and speak good things into our lives. He has promised us many things in his Word, and his desire is that we will have blessings in Christ, as a church, and in our lives individually. Anything that is in God’s will God wants for us if will speak it and believe. I’m not saying that we can get anything ‘we want’ in our lives, but interestingly enough, many of the things we want are the very same things that God wants us for us. If we want to be married, God can help us with that. If you want your children to believe in him and be good Christians throughout their lives, God wants that too. If we want to be more and more obedient to God in a certain area of our lives, God certainly wants that for us to. So, God can and will help us with these things as we speak his Word over our lives. Now, a person may want to be a multi-millionaire, and think he or she is going to speak for that, but God may not want that for you. A person may want to be the most famous and successful Olympic athlete to come, but that may not be God’s will for you.

Calling Good Things Into Existence, Part 1 (TMF:1156)

Monday, June 24, 2019
Peace to Live By: Calling Good Things Into Existence, Part 1 (TMF:1156) - Daniel Litton
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       I want you to turn over to Romans chapter 4, and here the Apostle Paul is discussing the promise that God made the Abraham in the Old Testament. Our belief in God, we read then, the promise that we have in Christ, became reality for us through our ‘faith’ in Christ’s work on the cross. That’s how we have come into right relationship with God. Now, in the text it says that God promised Abraham that he was to be the father of many nations. And how did God accomplish this task? Paul tells us God did it because he “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” God made a promise in the past that something would exist that did not exist. And how did he fulfill his promise to Abraham, and really to himself? He fulfilled it, the text tells us, by calling that which didn’t exist, which hadn’t happened yet, into existence, just like he did in Genesis 1. God speaks, and what he desires happens. And the text tells us that Abraham believed what God had said, and exercised ‘hope’ that God would do what he said he would do. And we can do the same things in our lives.