Praise God when you’re at the end of your rope. It makes room for Him to give you His.

Samson is one interesting character. As one reads his story, you find him making one bad decision after another. Each woman he encounters was not an Israeli, whom God commanded him not to marry, let alone have sex (Deut. 7:3-4; Ex. 20:14). Each woman he chose ended in trouble. You’d think he’d have learned.

We too make our share of bad choices in the process of becoming like Jesus. These choices can lead to head noise from the accuser, “You are not good enough. You are incapable of walking with God let alone being changed by Him. Just give up. He does.”

God’s Word, the truth that sets one free, tells us exactly the opposite. The Spirit wrote that Samson made it to the Faith Hall of Fame (Heb. 11:32). Life change is possible.

The Spirit also wrote “That is what some of you were.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 gives a laundry list of what some of them did or were, notice the past tense. Again, life change is definitely possible.

Why? Because “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

Be encouraged. This is how God sees you and me today while in the process of becoming more like Jesus. Life change is definitely possible.

See yourself as God does, but make sure praise is part of your shield of faith when the accuser slings out lies. Choose to believe and make choices based on the truths the Spirit gives you. And if you fall, choose to get up using those same truths.

My friends, your life can and will be changed!

Worship is hardened like steel in challenging times.

Noah built a boat, which he’d never done before. Abraham was told to leave the life he built behind in order to go to a place he’d never been. Sarah was told she’d have a child, though she was well past childbearing age. Abraham was asked to kill the child God promised Sarah.

Joseph was told his entire family would bow to him. Yet, his family sold him into slavery, which led to imprisonment for a crime he didn’t commit. Moses was asked to leave a life of position, luxury, and power to become the man who would confront the man who had the position, luxury and power to kill him.

Rahab betrays her people to hide her people’s enemies. While David faces a literal giant in his first foray into war to defeat his people’s enemies.

As we embrace life’s God-filtered challenges, the Spirit will change our lives. He will make our faith in Jesus grow stronger and our love for Him go deeper.

What is God asking of you, something super challenging? You’re in good company.

If you can’t change your mind, you’re closed to being changed.

I was reading Deuteronomy and Acts when the Spirit opened my mind to something I hadn’t “seen” before.

In Acts, Paul searched for, arrested and voted to put Jewish believers in Yeshua to death. Stephen being the first (Acts 8:1). Israel, like the US, had a constitution with 613 laws given by God. These Jewish believers broke one and were arrested.

Deuteronomy 13:1-12 gives us that law. It states that any prophet who appears in Israel and performs a “miraculous sign or wonder” (A) and then says, “Let us follow other gods” (B), must be killed, even if it’s a family member.

Jesus did miracles (A). Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (B). The Israeli judicial body took Him to mean that He was God, which was blasphemy. And as eye witnesses of both A and B, they picked up stones to kill Him. (Jn. 10:22-33)

Yes, Jesus did A, but not B. First, He was and is God. Second, He wasn’t trying to draw people away from but closer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Both are what the Law and the Prophets teach.

Yet, Luke writes that Jesus had to open the apostles’ minds in order for them to understand what the Law and Prophets actually said (24:44-45). And this took place after He physically rose from dead and was standing before them!

Paul had such a mind opening experience. Jesus physically showed up to him as well. This caused Paul to question all that he was taught up to that point. He now saw in the same Scriptures – the Law and the Prophets – that Jesus could be and was indeed the Son of God. This new understanding literally changed his entire life’s trajectory.

We all know what we know when we know it. But like Paul and the apostles, are we ready for the Spirit of Truth to awaken us to the truths we need in order to be set free from past understandings that keep Jesus at a distance?

I have. Hopefully you are open to it as well.

It’s not what you know, but Who you know because of what you know.

You’ve probably heard the cliché, “Heart change, not head knowledge.” Put another way, “I may know all the doctrines of the Bible, but unless I know the Messiah, there is not one of them that can save me.”

It’s not what you know, but Who you know because of what you know.

The Spirit doesn’t want to fill our heads with lots of Bible knowledge, which can lead to pride in ourselves (1 Cor. 8:1). No, He desires to use that knowledge to expose the thoughts/lies stored in our brains that keep us stuck in the sin-confession-sin cycle (Gal. 5:16-17 – “flesh”).   

Don’t get me wrong. We absolutely need biblical knowledge. This is part of who the Spirit of God is (Isaiah 11:2). Yet, He doesn’t stop with just giving us truth. His also wants to take what we know – the truth He gives – and move us to understanding why we do what we do. This way we can now apply what we know in our daily decisions. This process leads to knowing Jesus, the Messiah, breaking the cycle.

Who are you getting to know through what you know – Jesus or you? Embrace the truth! It is indeed good news. Just don’t stop there. Keep walking in step with the Spirit as He does His job – change your life.

Brokenness is the beginning, not the end, of your usefulness to God.

One of the most famous verses in the Bible is John 3:16, “For God the Father so love the world that He gave His one and only Son Jesus, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

This is a super transformative bit of truth every person on the planet needs to read, comprehend and apply to their life. Without belief in what Jesus did, a person has no hope of life after leaving this planet, let alone any hope that their time on this planet has any real meaning and purpose.

Yet, this where John 3:17 comes into play. “For God the Father did not send His Son Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

Unlike ourselves and others in our lives, our Father isn’t wagging His finger in disappointment at His children (see Jn. 1:12). Nope, His purpose in sending Jesus was to heal our brokenness, which is the meaning behind the word “save”.

Our Father knows that we are broken in need “saving”. He knows all the mistakes, sins, and less than stellar choices we’ll ever make. And, based in the fact that He is good, He sent Jesus to save us from our ourselves, to heal the hurts caused by ours and others choices, and to transform our lives from broken to whole.

He didn’t have to! We made our choices and deserve the consequence of those choices. Yet, out of His goodness and His love for all humanity, He sent Jesus to heal, not condemn, our daily choices.

3:16 is a glorious for tomorrow – eternal life. Keep reading, though. 3:17 is glorious for today – a changed life now without the fear of His anger or disappointment during that process.