Grace | Wayne Stiles

Archives For Grace

Your Motivation for Living for God

Before I had a family, I had a different car—a black Firebird with T-tops.

Sitting behind those eight cylinders, I could go from zero to too-fast in about five seconds (but, of course, I never did).

Your Motivation for Living for God Your Motivation for Living for God

(Photo by Photodune)

After Cathy and I had our first daughter, I decided I needed a family vehicle. Car seats don’t fit in Firebirds.

So I sold the car.

A few months later, I found a spare set of keys to the Firebird, and I thought: I need to get these to the new owner. Even though I could have kept the keys (as insignificant as it seemed), they really weren’t mine to keep. I had sold them, in a sense, when I sold the car.

Living for God is like finding a spare set of keys to a car you no longer own.

In fact, you have a whole lot of keys that aren’t yours.

Trying to Understand God’s Plan for You

Tough circumstances of life always change our minds about God.

They either tempt us to doubt what He’s promised, or they draw us closer to Him in faith. But we never stay the same.

Trying to Understand Gods Plan for You Trying to Understand Gods Plan for You

(Photo by Photodune)

God’s plan for your life is revealed and tested in times of struggle.

If you’re struggling today, don’t miss the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of God’s plan for you.

Joseph shows you how.

The Ideal Life You Want Isn’t Enough

Most people live for dreams. It’s a quest, really.

Clinging to ideals of how life could and “should” be, they chase those dreams like a carrot on a stick. Always within reach, but never gotten.

The Ideal Life You Want Isnt Enough The Ideal Life You Want Isnt Enough

(Photo by Photodune)

I guess we’re all wired to pursue the ideal. The world calls it following “your heart,” and we Christians refer to it as “the will of God.”

But in truth, we generally settle for nothing less than our version of how life ought to be.

Any search for the ideal needs only to look at the Garden of Eden to see the futility of that pursuit.

God points us a different direction.

Blame Shifting our Blunders

Finger pointing is hard-wired into our hearts.

In fact, it started early in human history. Like, really early.

Blame Shifting our Blunders Blame Shifting our Blunders

(Painting by Domenichino. Public domain)

In the Garden of Eden, God confronted Adam and Eve after they sinned, and their reaction set the course for an entire race of blame-shifters.

We’re still shifting the blame (and getting blamed).

The solution is the same today as it was then.

Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places

God will lead you places you would never choose. Unwanted places.

Because the Lord is much greater than you and I can imagine, it makes sense that He wants for us more than we ever dreamed.

Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places

(Photo by Photodune)

God wants you to trust Him, and you’d like to do so. He wants you to glorify Him, to know Him, and so do you. But really, you often want to trust God only when you understand Him.

Too often, that desire to know the Lord slices His list of attributes in half.

When you and I settle for anything less than all of God, we also settle for less than all we can become.

When Your Life Feels Empty

My dad used to have an old pickup truck I would borrow for odd jobs.

It wasn’t a good-looking truck, but it was faithful. The only glitch in the deal was the gas gauge. It read “almost empty” no matter how much gas you had.

When Your Life Feels Empty When Your Life Feels Empty

(Photo by Rick Harris from Whiby, Ontario, Canada. Uploaded by PDTillman. CC-BY-SA-2.0)

If you had just filled up, it read “almost empty.” If you had half a tank, it read “almost empty.” The gauge only worked when you were out of gas! It would immediately move from “almost empty” to “empty.” I remember once I coasted into a gas station on fumes and a prayer.

I have found one thing in life that cuts the cable from the gas tank to the gas gauge quicker than anything else.

It drains your relationships with people and dries up your walk with God.
It blurs your vision, exaggerates your emotions, and takes a healthy, balanced perspective of life and twists it of proportion.

I’m talking about the pervasive and infectious attitude of bitterness.

You can be riding along with a full tank, but bitterness will show you a gauge “almost empty.”

Did the Old Testament Offer Only One Way to God?

We can only approach God’s presence God’s way. But are there multiple ways?

The New Testament clearly reveals that only through Jesus can anyone come to God the Father (John 14:6; 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 John 2:23).

But what about in the Old Testament?

Ten Commandments sign on Mount Zion tb010312633 Did the Old Testament Offer Only One Way to God?

(Photo courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

After King David conquered Jerusalem and secured it as his capital, he desired to bring the Ark of the Covenant up from Kiriath-Jearim into his new City of David. But in his passion to have God’s presence, David neglected to follow God’s principles. That negligence of improperly transporting the Ark cost a man his life (2 Samuel 6).

Three months later, David correctly transported the Ark into Jerusalem and placed it in a tent he pitched for its keeping.

In this experience, David gained a profound respect for God’s holiness.

This principle directly relates to the question: did the Old Testament offer only one way to God?

Ein Gedi—A Testimony to God’s Grace and Provision

Ancient travelers who made their way along the shores of the Dead Sea would no doubt shake their heads when they saw it.

How could so much water stand in such a barren place—and none of it be drinkable?

Ein Gedi—A Testimony to God’s Grace and Provision Ein Gedi—A Testimony to God’s Grace and Provision

(Photo: The oasis of Ein Gedi beside the Dead Sea, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Before the obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Jordan Valley looked like the “garden of the Lord” (Genesis 13:10). But afterwards, even the many springs that bubbled beside the Dead Sea tasted too salty to swallow. The plentiful waters gave nothing in the way of sustenance.

They only offered a spiritual prompt of the need to take God seriously.

Against this depressing backdrop of death and desperation flows the Ein Gedi.

Traditions, Truth, and Praying with Your Eyes Open

Most Americans find it difficult to identify with the Jews who rock before the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I know I did at first.

It seemed, well, just . . . odd.

Then I thought about my traditions. Are they any less bizarre?

Traditions Truth and Praying with Your Eyes Open Traditions, Truth, and Praying with Your Eyes Open

(Photo: men praying at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Oddness just comes in different flavors. They’re called “traditions.”

Jews pray with their heads covered; we take our hats off.
Their prayers are public and loud and showy; ours are private and quiet and restrained.
They rock back and forth and mumble from a book; we bow our heads, close our eyes and utter unrehearsed words.

It’s easy in the familiarity of our own traditions to shake our fingers at the oddities of others. Jews pray while rocking, Muslims kneel with their bottoms in the air, and Christians bow our heads and close our eyes.

Blend any tradition—bowing, standing, prostrating, rocking, kneeling or jumping—with no personal relationship with the true God, and it’s totally pointless.

Maybe we Christians should open our eyes during prayer for a change.

When God Takes Something Away from You

It’s always great when God replaces something painful with something wonderful.

Or when He provides for a need in a context of desperation.

But what about when God takes away something we enjoy—or even something we need? Or when He allows something bad to invade something good?

When God Takes Something Away from You When God Takes Something Away from You

(Photo: by Hariadhi. Own work, GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Can we then say what Job said?

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised. —Job 1:21

During the times when God takes something away from you, it’s easy to feel duped, as if God was some kind of pusher, giving free samples and then removing them after the cravings have their hooks in your heart.

The Lord’s generosity can be misunderstood as cruelty.

Rather than praise God for the time we enjoyed His blessings—we tend to resent His sovereign prerogative to confiscate them.

Here’s some perspective that can help when God takes something away from you that was a blessing.