standing

Hope from your failure

July 21, 2012 by standing

The sting of failure hurts. In relationships, in our career, in ministry there is often failure. The harder we work, or the more we pray, it seems the more we can miss the mark. Then there are the expectations we have of burdens and hopes we’ve prayed months or years about only to see things not progress or even get worse. Dear ones, everyone experiences this discouragement, and including the giants of faith, such as Moses, Elijah, David Livingston and, most importantly, Jesus. God does take us down roads where things get worse before they get better. But the accusations of failure are the lie from the pit of hell.

Isaiah 49:4 Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain;
Yet surely my just reward [is] with the LORD, And my work with my God.’ “

So give a listen to David Wilkerson’s great sermon:

Audio: “I Have Labored in Vain: A Message for All Who Carry a Sense of Failure“

Here’s the text of the sermon as well.

Learn of the Hope in God amid a temporary sense of failure.

Filed Under: Trusting God, Work pressures

Your pain is part of a bigger picture

July 10, 2012 by standing

We are often so focused on our own family and relationship problems, that we only see them in our own personal terms and hurts. But God sees marriage rejection and splits as part of a bigger picture. This picture is very big, and involves His relationship with humankind.

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church.
However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Eph 5:31-33 NIV

When your prodigal rejects your true Love and forgiveness, you are in good company. Your individual rejection is a puzzle piece of pain in a greater picture of God’s love and redemption. This picture is the fallen world itself where humankind rejects Christ’s unconditional love.

He understands your pain, because the pain of rejection is a core pain that Christ experienced in His life on the earth and experiences now as people reject his free grace. He is on your side, and because of this he will help you and be your true love forever.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. – Isa 53:3-4 NIV

Filed Under: Loneliness, Pain and Hurt

Pray with the right motives

June 10, 2012 by standing

Are you praying for your loved one? Yes? Excellent. But the Lord convicted me of something recently. You see, my prayer for my loved one was often focused more on myself. “I want our relationship restored.” “I want her to have the joy of salvation.” “I want . . . . ”

You get the picture. It is so important to continue to pray for marriage restoration, but we need to pray with God’s heart, not just our own desires for a restored marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that wanting a restored marriage is a bad thing, but our heart should first be the Lord’s, which is focused on Him and his will to help and save our prodigals.

Jesus used a model prayer to teach us how to pray (Luke 11:13). This this prayer Christ teaches us to pray first for God’s will and way, then to forgive others. Later in this chapter Christ reminds us that heavenly Father is good, and so we are to expect He will give us good things.

So let’s continue to pray for our loved ones, but ask that the Lord would give us His heart and will when we pray. Then we can leave all the good things he has planned for us to Him.

Filed Under: Prayer, Waiting

Mother’s Day Testimonies

May 13, 2012 by standing

Rejoice Marriage Ministries published some touching testimonies from women and men who are trusting Christ to heal their marriages. http://rejoiceministries.org/mothersday.php

Filed Under: Charlyne Steinkamp, Family, Marriage

This Momentary Marriage

May 10, 2012 by standing

Desiring God produced this short documentary about the love story between Ian and Larissa Murphy.

Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically; it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Knowing Christ is more important than making a living. Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children. Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of marital success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity.

If we make secondary things primary, they cease to be secondary and become idolatrous. They have their place. But they are not first, and they are not guaranteed. Life is precarious, and even if it is long by human standards, it is short. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Prov. 27:1).

So it is with marriage. It is a momentary gift. It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon. Either way, it is short. It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds. If we make secondary things primary, we will be embittered at the sorrows we must face. But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.

—John Piper, This Momentary Marriage (Crossway, 2009), p. 178.

Visit Ian and Larissa’s blog here.

Filed Under: Marriage, Media and Publications, Video

He’s greater than you

May 2, 2012 by standing

John 4:4 “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Not only is Christ greater than the world around us, He is greater than ourselves in our weakness. He is building a new person inside of us; a new person and yes a new personality.

So as we stumble at times in our lives with broken relationships and job (or lack thereof) pressures, the wilderness journey will be fraught with impossible battles only the Lord can solve. If you are saved in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you. Invite him to take over, don’t listen to the old voices of failure, for the Lord can and will do great things for others through you. For “Philippians 1:6: being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Filed Under: Fear, Trusting God, Work pressures

Don’t take the easy way out

April 24, 2012 by standing

The Lord spoke a strong word tonight via a sermon he directed me to. David Wilkerson’s “Standing Steadfast in Christ” spoke about not seeking the easy way out. As the Lord shows us in scripture through nature, those who choose to avoid conflict, people and the inevitable fires of life will suffer spiritual apathy. It’s clear my trials at work and at home most be met head on with the grace of Christ. So “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” combined with the fact Christ will see me through my storms outside and my emotional pains within is absolutely necessary for me to grow.

And growing means not focusing on my own self but on how I can serve Christ and others. Wilkerson reminds us of Peter, who after he returned to the Lord and the risen Christ told him “Do you love me? Feed my sheep?”

Lord, help all who read this know that we must face life with your grace to grow and bear fruit for you. Let us not shrink from the spiritual battles at home and at work, but let us focus on helping the least and the lost of this world, in Jesus name.

Listen to Standing Steadfast in Christ>>

Filed Under: David Wilkerson, Pain and Hurt, Sermons, Trusting God, Work pressures

End of Your Loneliness

February 7, 2012 by standing

Loneliness is pervasive and deeply painful for many, no matter if they are divorced or married. Ironically, the lonely are a great company. John T. Cacioppo of the University of Chicago found that almost 25% of Americans feel chronically lonely. Above this authority, God Himself so identified the pain of loneliness it was the first thing in His creation He saw as flawed. In Genesis 2:18 He says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Gary Wilkerson of the Springs Church in Colorado says there can be an end to your loneliness. Listen or watch.

Filed Under: Audio, Gary Wilkerson, Loneliness, Sermons, Video

Mourning the Loss of Eden – Looking Forward to Something Better

June 12, 2011 by standing

Songwriter Brandon Heath’s 2011 album Leaving Eden describes a very real thing all of us go through who have suffered the loss of our hopes and dreams at the hand of our own sin and that of others.

We tend to look upon our own losses, such as divorce and separation, as “our own thing” a private pain unique to us. However, what we need to see is that our loss is a part of the overall human loss suffered at the “ground zero” of sin, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God and had to leave Eden.

Christ, in addressing divorce in Matthew 19 reminds of that broken relationships and divorce was not part of God’s hope for us. Christ says “But it was not this way from the beginning.”

We need to mourn our losses and move on into forgiveness. The only way to move on from all this world of pain, brokeness, and heartache is to have a place to go that has the forgiveness we need. This place is Christ, and as David says in Psalm 9:9 “The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.” Christ has a plan for you and for all this world to make things right and to restore that which was taken by sin from our lives. He promises in Isaiah 61:3 to “to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Ultimately in Christ says “Behold, I am making all things new” Rev 21:5.

Filed Under: Music, Pain and Hurt, Waiting

David Wilkerson Passes Into Life

April 28, 2011 by standing

It is with a mixture of present sadness and hope that we acknowledge the passing of David Wilkerson into the arms of Jesus, leaving this world due to an automobile crash. We continue to lift his family and his wife Gwen. David remains a man whose heart for the hurting, addicted, and lost touches me deeply in my continuing walk. Christ used my personal and marriage crises to bring me close, and David’s messages continue to show me the loving heart of Christ. David always honestly brought his own walk into his messages in a way that showed Christ’s love for those living the heartbreaks of life. His heart ached for those suffering around him.

I would recommend you read David’s last blog post “When All Means Fail“.

To those going through the valley and shadow of death, hear this word: Weeping will last through some dark, awful nights—and in that darkness you will soon hear the Father whisper, “I am with you. I cannot tell you why right now, but one day it will all make sense. You will see it was all part of my plan. It was no accident. It was no failure on your part. Hold fast. Let me embrace you in your hour of pain.”

Beloved, God has never failed to act but in goodness and love. When all means fail—his love prevails. Hold fast to your faith. Stand fast in his Word. There is no other hope in this world.

Earlier today I heard another who continues to minister after his passing via the radio, J Vernon McGee, tell a story about a man who took walks with God everyday. One day this man and the Lord were on an especially long walk. The man said to the Lord “It’s getting late, why aren’t we going back to my house?” The Lord said “Why don’t you come home with me today, my house is closer than yours.”

David, we are glad you are home tonight.

Filed Under: Announcements, David Wilkerson

Categories