God’s Renewal - Martin Wiles

And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” Revelation 21:5 NLT

Wildfires had nearly ravaged this popular tourist attraction.

My wife and I made our way to a conference in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Due to the heavy traffic and construction on the interstate, we decided to take the scenic route through Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Several months before, wildfires set by pranksters had threatened to destroy this popular tourist destination, along with parts of nearby Pigeon Forge. We were eager to see the damage. To our surprise, we saw very little.

As we neared Gatlinburg, the bottoms of burned trees were the only giveaway that fires had marched through the forests. Lush, green grass grew two feet high. Though trees were burned at their bottoms, the tops burst forth with new life. Things almost seemed greener and more alive than normal.

Driving through Gatlinburg, we saw only a few burned buildings. Most that had suffered damage had already been repaired. “Gatlinburg Strong” was plastered on marquis, shirts, cups, and other souvenir items. The will of the people had renewed what the wildfire attempted to destroy.

God told John He had the same power, and, in the end, would renew all things. The tainted earth, like scorched Gatlinburg, would be renewed.

Evil attempts to destroy the beauty God originally created. While it may appear it has the upper hand, God is still in control. Exactly why He allows it to continue when He could easily extinguish it is a question He hasn’t chosen to answer. But the end of the story reminds us who’s in control.

God’s in the renewal business. When Satan attempts to thwart God’s purposes for my life through temptations and trials, God reminds me there’s no temptation so great that He can’t show me a way through. When the trials are so intense that it appears they will destroy my soul, God sends relief in one form or another. He causes green to grow where blackness once spread.

All God asks of me is to let Him control my life and my situations. When I do, He will renew what Satan seems to have destroyed. He will redeem disappointing and discouraging situations and then use me to help others experience the same redemption. And He’ll do the same for you.

Let God bring renewal where the fires of this world have brought destruction.

Tweetable: Are you letting God renew what seems to have been destroyed?

Prayer: Father, we trust You to renew what Satan and others appear to have destroyed. 

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's Word.

All-the-Time God - Martin Wiles

And the LORD did not remove the pillar of cloud or pillar of fire from its place in front of the people. Exodus 13:22 NLT

She has some age on her, so I call her sometimey.

I love SUVs, so when we bought a new car I decided to keep driving the one my wife and I had driven for the last three years: a 2002 Ford Explorer with around 250,000 miles on the odometer. I say around because the odometer is sometimey. It only shows up once in a while.

The air is also sometimey. About a year ago, it decided it would stop coming out of the top vents and blow only out of the bottom vents. Rather than a cool upper body, I now keep cold feet. Then one day, I heard the mechanism open and suddenly air came from the vents it was supposed to. Four weeks later, it started coming from below again.

And then there’s the windows—all electric. They, too, are sometimey. Sometimes they roll down and roll back up, sometimes they roll down but won’t roll back up, and sometimes they won’t do either. Turning the car off and re-cranking it sometimes jump starts them. At other times, opening the door and closing it hard does the trick.

In spite of the sometimey parts on my car, I still love her. She’s been good and is still in good mechanical working order. I’ve just learned to put up with her sometimeyness.

But I wouldn’t want to serve a God who operated the same way. Fortunately, He doesn’t. After delivering His people from Egyptian slavery, He guided them consistently with a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire during the night.

God’s guidance of His current people mimics His guidance in the days of old. He is the same and never changes. I may come across incidents recorded in the Bible that seem to imply God changes, but that is only me trying to understand God from a human perspective. God doesn’t change His plans, character, or eternality.

What seems like change falls under the term sovereignty. In human time, it may appear God has changed, but whatever it is was already in God’s mind from the beginning.

Most importantly, God won’t change His mind about salvation, forgiveness, and eternity. Once we accept Him, we are His eternally. Nor will He take back His forgiveness of our sins.

When you can’t depend on anything or anyone else, you can always depend on God.

Prayer: Father, we thank You for being the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

Tweetable: What are you depending on?

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's Word.

Throwback Tuesday - Contentment's Secret - Martin Wiles

Contentment’s Secret

Paul Stutzman met Pathfinder (his trail name) at The Mill Restaurant. He was a celebrity of sorts and a repeat offender on the Appalachian Trail.

Before beginning his thru-hike of the AT, Stutzman followed the travels of Pathfinder. He always wished their paths would cross, and now they had. But Pathfinder was a kindred spirit in more ways than one. When Stutzman questioned why he continually hiked the AT year after year, his answer stunned him: “Well, Apostle (his trail name), my wife died of cancer about five years ago.”

Now Apostle understood.  He too had lost a wife to cancer, had walked away from his employment, and was now thru-hiking for the same reason. Pathfinder continued, “If I’d kept my business and not done that hike, I’d be a rich man today. Instead, I’m happy.” Read more...

Tweetable: What does it take to make you content?

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's Word.

Breathless - Martin Wiles

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. Genesis 2:7 NLT

His chest heaved as he gasped for the breath he could not find.

Born with asthma, my middle brother’s attacks soon began to come with regularity. Occasionally, the attacks were severe. As my brother gasped for breath, Dad would scoop him up and cart him to the emergency room while Mom stayed with me and my youngest brother. Nurses placed him in an oxygen tent and doctors examined him. When the attack passed, they sent him home. His asthma prevented him from playing sports in school, and more than thirty years later he still has to take medicine so he can do manual exercise without encountering breathing problems.

I watched the same breathless gasps with my daughter. While in high school, she developed exercise-induced asthma. Although she could once run track and cross country with no problem, now she couldn’t. Cross country was out of the question, and short track runs brought on attacks that led her to breathless gasps. Only inhalers, paper sacks, and cold washcloths drove them away.

There was a time when everything was breathless—animals and humans. If not for the power of God’s Spirit, it still would be. God instilled breath into the animals. Then He created man and breathed the breath of life into him. Apart from that breath, man would have remained a lifeless lump of dust.

The story of man’s beginning reminds me I’m not the author of my life. I didn’t begin it, I don’t preserve it presently, and I won’t end it. As God continually breaths His breath into me, I live. When He decides to stop, I will too. I’m not a product of fate or chance but a purposeful human being created by an almighty God.

I came from dust and will return to dust when I die, but in the meantime, God has work for me to do. My worth is based on who made me, not anything within me. Since God made me and breaths His life into me, I can accomplish whatever He created me to do. That plan may change many times over the course of my lifetime, but with each new direction, He breathes the strength I need into my body.

Remember your Creator, accept His breath, and do what He made you to do.

Prayer: Father, thank You for the breath of life which allows us to accomplish what You created us to do.

Tweetable: Are you doing what God created you to do?

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's Word.

Thinking God’s Thoughts - Martin Wiles

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them? Psalm 8:3-4 NLT

Thinking the right thoughts makes the difference between happiness and misery.

I’ve flown in foggy conditions, watched as the pilot took the plane upward, and marveled at how blue the sky was once we got above the clouds. I’ve also lain on the ground, looked upward, and marveled at the different shapes of the clouds.

I’ve sat on mountaintops and marveled at how far I could see. Peak after peak, rising into the sky in a seemingly endless range. I’ve also perched on mountaintops when the clouds were so thick I couldn’t see the next peak. But I could see clouds dancing between the peaks and carousing through the valleys.

Nature is a marvel. The psalmist thought so too. He had been a shepherd and spent many nights looking at the expanse of stars. No city lights existed to interfere with his view. He saw planets he didn’t know existed. When he had finished marveling over God’s creation, he thought of how small he appeared. What was he that God would even think about him?

But God did think a lot of humanity. So much so that He made them a little lower than Himself and the angels. He created them in His image. While we aren’t a carbon copy of God, we are more like Him than we are like plants and animals. We can think, reason, feel, and control our actions.

Sin spoiled God’s purpose for humanity. He knew we would sin before He created us, but His desire for relationship was worth the risk. He had another plan. Although Satan would think he had won, God’s plan was far superior to Satan’s. God would allow His only Son to pay our sin debt.

Accepting what Christ has done for me allows me to think God’s thoughts about me and leads to a radical change in my emotional conception of myself and others. God’s image in me is reborn. God works in my daily affairs to make me more like His Son in actions and words. I am no longer under His condemnation. Christ has set me free. God the Father sees me clothed in His Son’s righteousness. He sends His Spirit to continually indwell my life, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Think the same thoughts about yourself that God thinks. Doing so will change your life’s outlook.

Tweetable: Are you thinking God's thoughts?

Prayer: Father, may our thoughts about ourselves mirror Your’s and prompt us to be the people You formed us to be. 

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's Word.

Flashback Friday - The Right Path - Martin Wiles

The Right Path

The path meandered between my aunt and grandmother’s houses. I walked it often because I had a direction in mind, and because it was the shortest distance between those two points. Had it not led where I intended to go, I would have ignored it.

Andy Stanley says, “Direction—not intention--determines destination.” Read more...

Tweetable: What path are you traveling? 

Looking for a wide selection of genres in inspirational books at discount prices? Click here to see selections.

Thanks to all our faithful followers who are "sharing" our posts--please keep it up! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Help us spread God's Word.