Faith Challenge - Part One

Remember, A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success. ~ Unknown

Scripture:
The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deuteronomy 31:8

Periodically, I have an epiphany about God's word. Epiphany means, a sudden manifestation of the meaning or essence of something. Well not long ago as I sat listening to my pastor preach, I had one about my level of faith.

You see, not long ago, my Pastor did a preaching/teaching series on Be Encouraged. He spoke from the book of Exodus, Chapter 14, and verse 14. "The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace." Now how many times have we all heard this message? If we would just learn to be obedient and be still, the Lord, our God, will fight our battles for us. In essence, if we would turn our problems over to God and LEAVE them with God, he will handle it.

Now even though, I know this word from God and have learned so much more, I don't always adhere to it. You see, we go before God in prayer everyday to talk to him and tell him all about our problems. We ask God to help us and then we continue to worry about the same old problems all over again.

We go before the altar of sacrifice, and place our cares and concerns there for God to take them from us and then, when we finish praying, we start worrying about the same old things all over again; taking the same old problems away with us.

The day after I returned home from church, I issued a faith challenge to myself. I went before the altar and pledged to God that I would not speak anything negative about my situation in the coming week. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well, it may not be as easy as it sounds.

I know that saying you are going to do something and then making it happen isn't always easy. In order to leave my troubles and problems with the Lord, I have to commit to not taking them back from him. I can start by not speaking them into existence. This is part one of my faith challenge.

Will you join me today?

Be Blessed

Prayer:
Lord, we come before the throne of grace this day, to thank You for Your word. Lord, You are my rock and my strength. I can do all things through Christ Jesus, who strengthens me. Lord, I come before You this day to place my all on the altar. Lord, we know that You are our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and our end. We know that You can do anything but fail. Lord, we come standing on Your word and Your promise. The promise of everlasting life through Christ Jesus, my redeemer. Father, You have said there is power in the tongue. The power of life and death. We speak life into our situations. We thank You Lord, for keeping us in perfect peace. You speak to the storms in our lives, Peace Be Still. You wipe away our tears and heartaches. Thank You Lord. Father, we surrender all to You today and we will walk away knowing that all things are in Your hands. Thank Lord. We praise, uplift and exalt Your name. Praise be to God, for he is worthy of all honor, praise and glory. Amen.

Jacqueline Moore is a Christian author who offers spiritual words of encouragement daily on her website at http://www.jacquelinedmoore.com . She has contributed to several anthologies and is the 2009 African American Literary Show romance author of the year for her first novel, “Serving Justice” under the Peace in the Storm imprint.