RETREATING WITH GOD

What’s more important? The task or the person? When someone’s incompetence rears its head, think twice how you respond.

Jesus shows us how to do patience over and over again in the gospels. People were more important to him than tasks and rituals. That’s why he healed on the Sabbath.

If Jesus scorned us every time we demonstrated incompetence, we’d be a sorry soul. But Jesus does just the opposite. He’s patient. He loves us when we succeed and when we fail. He’s faithful to stick with us. Speed isn’t a big deal to him. He waits.

Let's talk about it in today's audio devotional.

KEY PASSAGE:

2 Pet 5:8-9 (NIV)

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

When you have a choice between panic and patience, it's hard to choose patience. But remember that God is bigger than your crisis. He wants to use you and your situation to glorify himself, as well as build the golden habit of patience in you. It's a tough lesson, so let me lighten it up with my real-life, comical story.

It all started when a strange number popped up on my phone on an early Sunday morning. For some reason, I answered it. Maybe I really wanted that free 5-night all-expenses-paid vacation in Las Vegas.

“Jon, I think I left my phone in the Uber car on my way to the airport,” my wife said on a borrowed phone. And so began our Sabbath Day lesson in patience.

Listen in for "the rest of the story."

KEY PASSAGE:

Gal 5:22-23 (ESV)

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

Peace of heart involves choices.  Will you let the world tell you what to do with every minute of your day, or will you respond to God?  No matter how busy your schedule is, you must find time to feed your soul. 

The urgent isn’t always the best.

Jesus found time, even in his busy schedule, for peace. He went away with God time after time. He needed the Father. He craved solitude. It refreshed him so he could face the crowds and the constant demands on his life.

Today, we'll explore this further in our interactive devotional.

KEY PASSAGE:

Mt 14:22-23 (NIV)

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

You've been wronged, attacked, ridiculed, ignored, rejected, or slighted. It hurts. How can you recapture God’s soul peace when you have a wounded heart? There’s no step-by-step solution. It’s deeper than some textbook answer. You’re in pain and that requires healing.

Can I point you to Jesus? Not as a pat spiritual answer, but as a way to experience the personal healing love of the Savior. Isn’t that what you really need?

Let's go to Jesus together today.

KEY PASSAGE:

Ps 34:8-10, 17-18 (NIV)

Taste and see that the Lord is good;

blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Fear the Lord, you his holy people,

for those who fear him lack nothing.

The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;

he delivers them from all their troubles.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3 ESV).

Is there such thing as perfect peace? 

Our hearts long for perfect peace, which we will only fully experience when we are in the presence of Jesus. We live in a fallen world, in which nothing is perfect. Even peace. Or so it seems. Let's go deeper in this today.

KEY PASSAGE:

Isaiah 26:3-4 (ESV)

You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

“For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV).

That verse always gets me. It makes no sense – humanly speaking. And I’m a human.

The statement before those nine words frustrate me even more. “I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.”

Today, we're going to look deeply into Paul's life.

KEY PASSAGE:

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV)

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

Surrender to the Lord can be a bit like my “harrowing” kayaking experience one summer. When I leaned to the right, lurched to the left and immediately realized I was totally out of control and headed for a splash, I gave in to the moment. I prepared to get wet.

Learn more about how God used this experience to teach me.

KEY PASSAGE:

Matthew 16:24-26 (ESV)

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

Why don’t we willingly give ourselves over to God as a way of life? Pride, self-will, selfishness. Burger King says we can have it our way, so we do.

There’s something deeper. Paul starts Romans 12 with these words, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy…”

Let's talk about surrender today.

KEY PASSAGE:

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

When it comes to getting rest for our souls these days, has God left us to our own devices? Actually, I think he wants us to put them to rest so we can rest. Our devices . . . today’s biggest enemy to rest.

We’ve heard the statistics. The average person spends over 75 minutes on social media each day, nearly a half hour texting, 25 minutes on email, 15 minutes playing games, and the rest of the time on calls and apps, for a total of over four hours a day. The biggest time waster used to be TV. Now it’s whatever we want it to be on our phone.

Today. we'll zero in on rest and our devices. 

KEY PASSAGE:

Ps 130:5-6 (ESV)

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

 RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]  

Mom, you might be so exhausted that your hope for rest is gone. Your spouse or friends seem oblivious to your situation. Or, if they see your struggles, they don’t step in. You might have accepted that you’ll live like this for the next several years.

But there is hope! God promises, “The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him” (Lamentations 3:25 NIV).

Let's explore that principle today.

KEY PASSAGE:

Lamentations 3:22-26:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;

it is good to wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

RESOURCES:

Download the 21-DAY FRESH FAITH EXPERIENCE at www.retreatingwithgod.org.

Visit FRESH FAITH 24/7, a place where you can retreat with God and get to know him more deeply: www.freshfaith247.com. 

Connect with Jon at [email protected]