Practical Faith

God’s journey for us in life rarely looks like a straight line arrow. It often looks more like zig-zagging line with lots of twists and turns along the way. Some of this is our doing; some of it is His; and in His sovereign mercy, He is weaving it all together into an amazing tapestry of faithfulness. Where we sometimes get into trouble in walking with the Lord is when we put our expectations about HOW our desires are going to be fulfilled ahead of the God who intends to fulfill them. We see this happen in the Bible with Abram.

There’s an important distinction between having clear goals vs. having just good intentions. All the hoping and wishing – and, even praying – in the world isn’t going to amount to anything if I don’t DO something about it. You have a vision for your future. You can see where you want to go. You’ve identified some simple, initial steps you can take in the right direction. And guess what? You are now a small step or two closer to realizing your dream of becoming more like Jesus!

What’s your dream? What are you dreaming about with God? What are your hopes for yourself? for your character? your family? your future? your legacy? These are ALL great things to have a vision for in your life with the Lord. Depending on the size of your dream, you might be just 10 steps away, or it might be 50,000 steps away. But once you envision with the Lord where you want to go with Him, and you start taking steps forward on that path with Him, you will be getting closer and closer to actually achieving that future in the Lord that you have envisioned for yourself.

Today on Practical Faith, I want to lead you in a short exercise of dreaming with God about your future. You can do this wherever you are right now: in your car, at home, at the gym, wherever. For just a couple of minutes, we are going to talk and think about and practice dreaming together with God, who said, “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a good future.”

Today, we are wrapping up our short series on the topic of “Discipleship at Home,” and I want to address one of the most common objections I hear around this topic, and that is this: “It’s too late for me. I missed my chance. My kids are grown. I wish I had known about all this stuff earlier...”

Welcome back to “Practical Faith” – where today, we will continue in our short series on the topic of “Discipleship at Home.”

Today on “Practical Faith,” we'll introduce a short new series on the topic of “Discipleship at Home.” The way we grow is by practice. Family devotions for us through the years have been full of trial-and-error, starts-and-stops, and starting back over again. It has not been perfect, but we have tried to remain intentional and consistent in practicing some form of family discipleship together throughout those years. The Lord has been gracious to us. Our kids have been patient with us :-) It’s messy and imperfect, but two steps forward and one step back is still forward progress – and practice makes progress!

If you’re like me, then, we don’t want to do what only we can do in our lives. We certainly want to give our very best – but frankly – if this is just a human effort producing human results… then, what’s the point? But the hunger and the ache and the yearning of our souls is, “Oh God!, please come – please come – and do what only You can do among us!”

Persecution affects about 200 million Christians around the world today. Imagine the amount of faith in Jesus, and courage from His Holy Spirit it must take to live in a place where your neighbors or the government are openly hostile toward your faith in Jesus… You and I have the opportunity to pray courageous, faith-filled prayers now for our persecuted brothers & sisters around the world!

God has purposes for you in this generation – purposes that He has called you and equipped you and prepared in advance for you to fulfill. Our loved ones – our friends and family – our everyday connections in the world – they are hungering for the grace, the truth, the deliverance, the victory, the identity and purpose which we all know they are only going to find in Jesus. And Jesus is saying to us what he said to the man healed in Luke 8, “Go to your home. Go to your loved ones back home! Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”