Planning to Succeed - Martin Wiles

Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house. Proverbs 24:27 NLT

My name was in the pot, and with God’s help, I was planning to succeed.

Type A’s are known for planning—sometimes to excess. I was cursed from birth. Both my parents were Type A’s, and I followed suit. Every church I had led, I did so with a plan, and this time would be no different. When the board recommending me to the church asked if I had a vision for their church, I removed a pad and read off my list. I didn’t know if I’d be their pastor, but I had a plan just in case. 

Solomon’s advice was pertinent. Building a house before preparing one’s fields was foolish. Suppose a dry spell hit or enemies swooped in and stole the crop. Saving from a bountiful harvest and then building the house made more sense than taking on debt with no assurance of how to pay for it. 

When planning, we should make a point to include God. Since God says he wants to be involved in the details of our lives, involving him only makes sense. Although he won’t sit around a table and talk audibly to us, we can listen as he speaks to our spirits with his Spirit. Ideas will come that we would have never thought of on our own. Insights will flow. And we’ll feel a sense of peace when we’ve received his directions.

We should also include others in our planning. Although I had a list of plans before leading the church, I immediately began to include others. Amazingly, most of their suggestions were the same as mine, which assured me they also included God in their planning. Two heads are better than one, and lone rangers often become just that—alone. 

We can plan with confidence when we include God and other spirit-led believers. We can then couple confidence with optimism. If God is before and in the middle of the plans, they won’t fail. In fact, God’s plans can’t fail—which means we won’t when he is the author of our plans. Good planning means having a backup plan. I’ve often appeared to mess up God’s plan for my life, but somehow, he always brings the plan back to his plan. 

Get your plans from God and confidently move forward into your bright future.

Father, I ask for your guidance as I plan to accomplish your will. 

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Life on a Higher Plain - Martin Wiles

I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe in him. Ephesians 1:19 NLT

Almost without exception, it happened every time we backpacked.

From my late thirties to early forties, my brother, daughter, and I observed a regular backpacking routine. Several times a year, we trudged the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee mountains. We planned our trips meticulously and looked forward to each one. With one exception—the uphills. Camping spots were almost always in a valley, meaning an uphill climb was the first thing we faced the next morning. But the strenuous climbs were always worth it. Reaching the tops provided us with vistas never before witnessed.

Although Paul wasn’t describing a hiking trek or a higher plain, he could have been. Obviously, many of the first-century believers didn’t understand the power they had in Christ. They were dwelling in the valley of satisfaction when there was a higher plain to reach. Understanding their power in Christ would propel them to these high peaks.

Living on a higher plain of understanding allows us to use the power God gives to witness. Sharing our faith can be a frightening thing. We never know how people will react and sometimes don’t know the right words to say. Some may just walk away, while others might berate or physically attack us. Though we may fumble our words and risk harm to ourselves, God’s power to witness will enable us to overcome both possibilities.

Life on a higher plain entails trusting God’s power for life’s trials. No temptation will be greater than His power to help us endure and overcome, nor will any terrible situation be so unbearable that He can’t walk us through it.

On the higher plain, God also gives us the capacity to touch others in His name. Loving them as we do ourselves is the second greatest command, according to Jesus. God will provide the opportunities and resources if we merely ask.

When living on a higher plain, we’ll experience God’s ability to help us endure to the end. Jesus said the one who does so will be saved. Life can throw some terrible curves that might tempt us to give up, but the Spirit’s power in us is greater than anything the enemy can lob our way.

Don’t live in the valley. Choose the higher plain.

Father, help me realize the power You give that enables me to live on the higher plain.

I invite you to try my book Hurt, Hope, and Healing in eBook or paperback. If you seek hope and healing because of the hurts you have faced, this book is for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

The Groomers’ Tools - Lynne Phipps

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.  Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:13-14 NIV

Enrolling in a professional dog grooming course required me to purchase tools and a proper carrying kit. Having purchased all the necessary equipment and labeled my kit box, I was also instructed that all my groomer’s tools needed to bear my specific mark. This allowed each student to identify their own tools, thus avoiding mix-ups as we worked together.

Marking these solid steel instruments, however, was no easy task. Fortunately, a friend had the right equipment to cut a small v-shape into the side of each of my cutting blades, scissors, metal combs, and clippers. Once this was achieved, my tools would never be mistaken for anyone else’s. No one could take them out of my hand or kit and claim them as their own.

Likewise, God tells his chosen people that we, too, are sealed with his mark: the Holy Spirit who indwells all who come to know Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit, in turn, continues to mark us as God’s tools for the glory of God's Kingdom through the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control show the world we belong to God.  

Romans 8:35 assures us that nothing can separate us from Christ: not trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword. In John 10:28, Jesus states that no one can snatch us from his Father’s hand. 

The Father knows us. He has marked us as his own, now and forever. What a marvelous truth and assurance, allowing us to rest in the one in whom we have believed. He is the Savior of our souls and can guard what we have entrusted to him for eternity.

Find peace in knowing that you belong to God. 

Father God, thank you for marking me with the seal of your Holy Spirit, a deposit guaranteeing my inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession. Amen.

Lynne Phipps and her family live on a small hobby farm in the heart of Alberta, Canada’s farming country. She has been writing devotions for forty years and never tires of the spiritual correlation the Holy Spirit blesses her with. He uses normal everyday events and the behaviors of the multitude of glorious creatures He has brought across her path to point her to the truths of God. Lynne is a devotion writer for VineWords: Devotions and More.

I invite you to try my book Hurt, Hope, and Healing in eBook or paperback. If you seek hope and healing because of the hurts you have faced, this book is for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Hope for a New Year - Martin Wiles

Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:30-31 NLT

Although a goal-oriented type of guy, I stopped making New Year resolutions a long time ago.

Since I set goals throughout the year, I wondered what the point of relegating them to one day was. And then, too, the statistics of keeping them aren’t too good. Many are broken within a short period of time. Days. Weeks.

But failing to make goals on one day doesn’t mean everything has gone well throughout the year. Weak, tired, and exhausted are three adjectives that accurately describe most previous years for anyone. Weak from sicknesses or diseases for which there is no cure and that seem to go on and on. Weak and tired emotionally from working to meet financial responsibilities when there isn’t enough money to pay the bills—or buy groceries. Tired of studying for the degree, tired of writing papers, and tired of the late-night hours. Exhausted from having to care for loved ones who can’t fend for themselves. Tired of going to a job we’d rather not go to.

Isaiah gives hope … and the key for a fresh start to a new year. Trusting in the Lord probably won’t make all, or any, of the stressors disappear. Sometimes God takes them away … sometimes He doesn’t. But trusting in Him gives us strength beyond ourselves—fortitude we can’t manufacture on our own. The new strength comes from remembering He is in control. He has come through for us in the past, and He will again. Perhaps not in the way we want or imagine, but come through He will.

That trust will cause us to soar above the trials and tribulations like an eagle that flies high above the obstacles that would restrict her flight. God will enable us to soar when ordinarily we would crash and burn. We will run the race of life without being emotionally, physically, or spiritually exhausted. We will walk through every day, with all that it brings, without falling. Even with peace … and a smile.

God never promised an easy life, but He will give us hope for every year when we look to Him.

Put your hope in God this year, not things or people.

Prayer: Father, give us hope in this New Year.

Tweetable: Do you have hope for the New Year? 

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Reaching the Goal - Martin Wiles

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. Philippians 3:13 NLT

Our goal was thirty-eight miles and five days away.

Backpacking through thirty-eight miles of wilderness with a twelve-year-old daughter frightened me, but my daughter had decided that’s how she wanted to spend her spring vacation from school. We were both new to hiking and backpacking, so I was nervous. I laid out our food and equipment, trying to bear in mind the weight we would carry on our backs.

But preparing our supplies and equipment was only part of the preparation. We had to physically prepare. My daughter ran track and cross country. I knew she could handle the trip. Me on the other hand? I was a little worried. I walked daily, but I was much older and didn’t have the upper body strength I thought I needed. Could I carry a fifty-pound pack eight hours a day for five days?

We made the hike—and it was the best hiking experience we ever had—but we had to strip away everything that would slow us down. As I looked over the supplies lying on the living room floor, I selected only what we had to have and did everything possible to lessen the weight of the essentials.

I’ve set many goals during my lifetime, but the most important one entails what Jesus classified as the greatest commandment: loving Him with my entire being. Examples that spur me on fill the pages of the Bible and Christian history. But I’ll only reach the goal by laying aside the weights that slow me down—among them past sins and failures.

Intentional and unintentional sins litter the pasts of every believer. We can’t undo them, nor can we relive our lives. But we can do what Paul suggested: forget what’s behind and strain towards what’s ahead. Forgetting is impossible unless we’ve had brain damage, but we can refuse to dwell on past sins and failures.

When we confess our sins, God wipes the slate clean. He wants us concerned with the present and the future. The past only defines us when we allow it. God defines us by our present and future intentions. The same applies to past failures. The only permanent failure is when we give up and refuse to try again.

Don’t let past sins and failures determine who you are today and tomorrow.

Tweetable: Are you letting past failures hold you back?

Prayer: Father, thank You for forgiving our past and giving us a bright future. 

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Flashback Friday - Martin Wiles

Living with Purpose

I’ve never been one, but I hear it’s an exhilarating experience. And as of February 21, 2013, I entered the “Grandpa (or more appropriately ‘Pee Paw’) world.”

Levi Andrew Wiles entered our universe in Anderson, South Carolina, at 1:24 a. m. Fortunately my daughter didn’t force me to wait 20 hours for his arrival. Within the space of a few hours, he guzzled his first breath of air, wallowed in his first bath, underwent a thorough inspection by medical staff, gulped his first sip of mother’s milk, and made himself ready for the holding and gawking that normally attends the birth of a first child or grandchild. Read more...

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