Your Voice

All things are possible with God

By Karen Moore
karenmooreauthor.com

I’m an optimist. I love to think about all the things that are still possible. That’s how I move past yesterday and look forward to tomorrow. From everything I can tell, the greatest possibilities occur when we prepare for them, get ready and imagine everything we want. Whether we plan to run a foot race, take a marvelous vacation, or build a house, we have to prepare. We have to get ready.

As a believer, getting ready means you start with prayer. You ask for God’s direction for your plans, preparing what you can and fully anticipating the moment to get set.

Getting ready is what the 10 biblical maidens did as they prepared to meet the bridegroom. They had their lamps ready waiting for the bridegroom to appear. All 10 of them were ready, but only five were set.

The five that brought more oil for their lamps had prepared for any contingency. They anticipated their plans could take longer than they might hope so they were set for things to go forward.

The other five maidens who ran out of oil had to go back to square one, refill their lamps and return to the waiting area. They were dismayed to discover the bridegroom had come while they were away.

Facing obstacles

I don’t know about you, but I can relate. How many times have I started in a great direction and prepared for it as well as I could, only to forget some detail that meant things could not happen as I planned? I had to go back and get more information or work around the obstacles that had arisen.

Reworking the plan sometimes meant the door of opportunity closed because of timing. Sadly my lamp burned out.

Possibility comes all the time. It fills the air exploding into beautiful fireworks and then slowly disappears. If we’re ready because we’ve done our homework and prepared for it, trusting in the goal and setting the direction with skill and planning, then possibility embraces us, and we’re set to go. All we had to do was prepare the way.

All things are possible with God, Jesus told His followers. They become possible as we get ready, prepare and make our best efforts. Then we have to be laser-focused, setting our sights on all that can be, and finally, we have to act. We have to go!

As a writer, I think about all the planning and preparation that goes into creating a book. When I worked on my book, “It’s Still Possible,” I had to believe in the project with my whole heart. Once I did my homework, I moved toward the goal, writing the book as best I could.

I wouldn’t have been successful if I simply put the completed manuscript in a drawer. I had to go. I had to take action, sending it out into the world and giving it wings. Whatever your goal might be, get ready, set the standard and go after your dreams. With God’s help, all things are possible.

Get Ready! Get Set! Go!

Missionary says ‘thanks’

We are so thankful for the fruit we are seeing in our ministry after years of seeing so little.

We are convinced that’s because the Bible translation project that you funded is finally complete, and our people can hear the Bible in their heart’s tongue.

Fellow Southern Baptists, we could not do anything we do without you.

Thank you, brothers and sisters, for giving to the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

Because of your prayers and gifts, we got to go. We got to be part of the work God is doing among our people.

You can rejoice with us because you gave and lives are being changed.

Andy Hoffman
International Mission Board

Preparing for our adversaries

By Franklin Kirksey
Spanish Fort, Ala.

A foundational element in military strategy is to know your enemy. If you underestimate your enemy, you will experience defeat.

Foes, family, friends

Believers have three evil adversaries: the world, the flesh and the devil.

These correspond to “earthly, sensual, demonic” (James 3:15). The world is a system of thought without God (1 John 2:15–17). The flesh is the self not under the control of God (Gal. 5:17–25). The devil is Satan who rebelled against God (Rev. 12:7–10).

Believers also have three exemplary ancestors: Noah, Daniel and Job.

Ezekiel 14:14 reads, “‘Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness,’ says the Lord God.”

Noah overcame the world (see Gen. 6:8 and Heb. 11:7).

Daniel overcame the flesh (see Dan. 1:8).

Job overcame the devil (see Job 1:11–12, Job 42:7).

Believers have three eternal allies: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It has been said the world rivals God the Father, the flesh rivals God the Holy Spirit, and the devil rivals God the Son.

‘Get up, face them again’

Oswald Chambers explains, “In education everything is built up on difficulty, there is always something to overcome. And this is true in the spiritual world.

“If the world, the flesh and the devil have knocked you out once, get up and face them again, and again, until you have done with them. That is how character is made in the spiritual domain as well as in the natural.”

“Members with cluttered hearts can hamper the church from being a temple of God’s Spirit.”

Jerry Batson
Theology 101, “God’s Temple”

“The Lord had a plan. He placed people in my path who would push me and grow me. Through that, I sensed a call to ministry,” said Nate Young, who shared how his involvement in campus ministry eventually led to his call to full-time ministry. He is pastor of North River Church in Tuscaloosa.

For Christians “the gospel should affect every piece of our lives, including the way that we invest the capital that God has entrusted to us,” said Brett Danforth director of client development, Oak City Consulting of North Carolina.

“My heart can’t handle the photos of the bodies so I delete them … and while I’m not one to cry easily, watching fathers having to leave their families at the border with the kids grasping to hold on to them gets me,” said Sabin Boruga, Baptist church planter in Sighisoara, Romania.

“I don’t know of a single Russian person who does not have relatives in Ukraine and vice versa,” said Theresa Felt, former International Mission Board missionary. “So it isn’t just a concern of the lives that are being lost on either side of the conflict, but also that it’s truly relatives fighting against relatives. I’ve compared it to the Civil War here in the U.S. Not all Russian people are supporting this. Always remember, our individual politics are often way different from the government’s politics. People are just people. We are creations of God who need a relationship with Jesus.”

“There’s a great Church in Russia. The Church in Russia is strong, is sound, is growing and is vibrant,” said Lamar Shubert, IMB worker.

“God gave me this vision to reach out to people who are getting ignored — the good ol’ boys,” said Terry Billings, mud bogger racer, whose story is featured in TAB Media Stories podcast. “I’ve always been one of them. I was an alcoholic, and God reached out and touched me. If He hadn’t, and if people hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been saved. So there’s nowhere that’s too far for me to go to reach them.”

From the Twitterverse

@ethicist
We must remember that just as God was merciful and long-suffering toward us, so is He patient with unbelievers who sometimes persecute the church.

@GaryFenton07
Prayer is practiced and commanded in the Bible, but never fully explained. We trust the One to whom we pray and not our words.

@macbrunson
The preaching of the Word of God does not mean merely that the text is taken from the Bible … But that the preacher … is experiencing the presence and power of God’s Spirit in his reason, conscience, affections, and purposes — that his own life is hid with Christ in God, that he is in all meekness and lowliness, because of his unworthiness. Yet with all boldness and trustfulness, because of God’s call and endowment, fulfilling a divine mission in delivering a divine message. — Alfred Earnest Garvie

@TAndrewBrown
He who fights with the precious blood of Jesus fights with a weapon that cannot know defeat. The blood of Jesus! Sin dies at its presence; death ceases to be death; heaven’s gates are opened. The blood of Jesus! We shall march on, conquering and to conquer. —Spurgeon

@DrGaryChapman
Your most basic emotional need is … to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. You need to be loved by someone who chooses to love you, who sees in you something worth loving.

@ToddUnzicker
“Christian, in light of the resurrection that we all just celebrated, let’s remember today that the ground is level at the foot of the cross and He commands us to ‘love one another.’”

@johnnymhunt
If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be exhibited in us. —Oswald Chambers

@MichaelCatt
The divisiveness of our nation has infiltrated our churches. Jesus is not far left or far right. He is the King. We need to … start repenting of fleshly agendas that divide us instead of the mission that unites us.

@bellevuepastor
Christian, you don’t have time to participate in everyone else’s agenda. Ask God what your focus should be and then commit yourself to that. If others get upset … don’t worry about it. Your goal is to please the Lord by obeying Him.