Keeping the Faith

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Be and Become podcast, featuring Francois Carr of Heartcrawlig and Connected Life Ministry. Francois International Ministry equips and encourages pastors, ministry leaders, and fellow Christians as they discover what it means to truly be and become the followers they were meant to be. Thank you for joining Francois today as he offers a few words of encouragement from God's Word.

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Hello everyone, a warm welcome to our weekly devotion. I trust that the Lord will speak to you through this word and be a great encouragement to you in this day. Now God wants us to keep the faith to stay close to Him, and especially when things is not working out the way that we have planned or hoped it would be. Sometimes we put our hope and our beliefs in our own abilities and way of doing things, our giftedness, our finances, our spouses, our jobs, and when circumstances take a turn for the worse, we lose hope. When we look at the life of King David before he even became the king of Israel, he was telling the ship of his father in Bethlehem, he became a national hero after killing Goliath, he lived in the palace of the king. People simply loved and adored him, he had a wife who cared for him, and a friend Jonathan that looked out for him. He was popular, he had some finances, he had a position of power in the palace, and know that sometime in the future he will become the next king of Israel. As you look at his life from that perspective, you would say that life just could not get any better. However, when we read 1 Samuel chapter 19 through the beginning of chapter 22, we see that things almost changed overnight for David. One thing led to another thing that happened in his life day by day. We see that Saul wanted to kill David. Eventually his wife had to help him escape from Jerusalem. He had to flee and make his way to Samuel the prophet, and later on to the priest Aemelech, and later on he finds himself in the area of the king of Gath, where he pretended to be insane. And in all these things, as we look in these chapters of 1 Samuel, we read that David did not consult the Lord, but rather tried to work all his problems out on his own. And as a result he had to flee. He placed his friends in the position of danger, and himself got himself deeper and deeper in trouble in his mind and his heart until he ended up alone in the cave of Adulum, chapter 22, verses one. I can imagine the questions that might have gone through the mind of David in that moment. What is happening and why is this happening to me? Where is God in all of this that takes place? Why did God allow this to happen, especially to me? Why me and why now? How did I get here and how can I get out of this? Now sitting in the cave and wondering what to do next, I believe, was a very good thing for King David. It brought him to the end of himself. He needed to stop trying to control his life, his circumstances, and simply give it to God. Now a friend of mine whose name is Bull Stafford said one time when Manly Beasley was preaching in his church a revival, he said God has convicted me of the ministry of trying and brought me into the ministry of resting. Convicting me of the ministry of trying to control my own life, my circumstances, my ministry, how to change my people, my community, instead of just simply resting in God's perfect plan and purpose and God's timetable for me and for what God wants to accomplish in me and through me. God wants us to keep the faith. But in the whole process, He will bring us to a place and a point in our lives where we realize we cannot fix things, we have no control over things in our lives or what's happening around us in this world. And we simply have to come to a point where we can give it all to the Lord. But also that we that we come to a place to realize that in the midst of all these things that the Lord is still with us. David's problem was that he was not looking for God or at God, but he was focusing and looking at the problem and the difficulties that he was facing. As I look at his life, I realized that maybe David should have learned his lesson when he was facing Guniah, because he said that the battle belongs to the Lord, and how the Lord intervened for him even when he finds himself with Samuel, because I mean they started to prophesy. All the people that Saul sent to him, even Saul himself, when he comes to visit and find David at Samuel's place, he started to prophesy as well. Or when he ate from the holy bread that symbolizes and speaks about God's presence. He should have reminded David that the Lord is with him, but in all these things he did not. It was in the cave that he came to his senses and realized that fear has controlled his life as he was running from one place to another. It was there as he was sitting alone, not knowing what to do and how to respond to all these things that he looked his problems in the eye long enough and realized he has taken his eyes away from the Lord and realized that the Lord is still with him in the midst of all that he is facing. I want to encourage you to read through Psalm 142 and look what David was just feeling in his heart and the way that he looked to the Lord and cried to him in the midst of all that was happening to him. But also, we come to a place just like David that we have to accept what is happening in our lives. As I was reading through Psalm 57, this verse just kind of jumped out to me and spoke to my heart. He said, For my soul trust in you, and in the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge. Until these calamities have passed by, I will cry out to God's most high, to God who performs all things for me. He said, Until these calamities have passed by, to God who performs all things for me. David came to a place to accept God's plan and purpose for him, and what is happening to him, all these calamities is passing by, because that was part of God's plan for his life, no matter how difficult it might have been for him in that moment. In my own life, I've come to realize the last couple of years that when you find yourself in a place like this, almost like stripped from all your resources and the default in knowing what to do and how to do things and to fix things, and come to a place of realizing there are levels of brokenness and surrender and faith and trust and obedience, it brings us to a new place to surrender to God's perfect plan and purpose in our own lives. And I want to encourage you in this day, if you find yourself going through some difficulties or tough times, God wants you to give it to Him and surrender that unto Him as you realize that the Lord is with you even in the midst of all these things that you might experience until the calamities will pass away, and accept the fact that God is working in you and He wants to use you to become a blessing for other people, and He's working out His plan until the very moment. Just like David said, God who performs all things for me and through me. And God wants you to keep the faith. He wants you to stay close to him, he wants you to believe in him and to trust him that all things will work out according to his plan. Romans chapter 8, verse 28. And so God wants to bless you with the knowledge today, and he wants you to keep the faith, even though things will be tough and difficult in you and around you, to bring you to a place of surrender, to realize the Lord is with you, and accept the fact that God is at work in your life to work out his perfect plan. May God bless you.

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Thank you for listening to this Be and Become episode with Francois Carr. For more information about the ministry, visit the website at ConnectedLifeministries.com. We hope you'll join Francois next time as he continues the conversation on what it means to be and become the follower you are meant to be.