UCB Word For Today

Solomon wrote, ‘I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness’ (Ecclesiastes 8:15 NLT). If you are wise, you will take those words to heart. The impact of laughter is well documented. Studies show it lowers blood pressure and reduces hypertension. It reduces stress hormones and cleanses the lungs and body tissues of stored stale air, because laughter empties more air out than it takes in. It increases immune functions in the body. On top of all these benefits, laughter triggers the release of endorphins – those ‘feel good’ chemicals in the brain that make you feel happy. These are the identical chemicals released when some people, after a prolonged period of running, experience a runner’s high. That’s why the Bible says, ‘A merry heart does good, like medicine.’ So, take advantage of every opportunity to have a good hearty laugh. Laugh at your mistakes – especially on the job. Shed the superwoman or superman image, and start having fun. This doesn’t mean you have relaxed your standards of excellence; it just indicates you are aware of the fact that you and those around you are human. So have some fun; be a good sport. Don’t allow life’s pressures and negative circumstances to snuff out your sense of humour. Laughter reflects positive emotions and makes you a lot more enjoyable to be around. Nobody enjoys a sourpuss; laughter can also take your mind off what’s stressing you. So, laugh often, and remember, ‘The joy of the LORD is your strength’ (Nehemiah 8:10 KJV).

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

How much peace do you display? How well do you respond to the difficulties in your workplace? Are you always tense or complaining? Is your desk neat and organised, or are there huge piles of paper all around? Disorder can be mentally unsettling and stress inducing, and wear down your peace. What about your overall behaviour; are you always fuming over co-workers’ mistakes? Have you learned to stop sweating the small stuff? Have you stopped to think about what a poor testimony it is not to reflect peace, which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit? ‘The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control’ (Galatians 5:22-23 NLT). What about your daily drive to work? Do you sit down in your car with the aim of keeping a peaceful atmosphere no matter the circumstances you encounter on the road? When was the last time you prayed for a bad or unkind driver? Do you play calming music? The right music can be an excellent source of peace. When King Saul was tormented by an evil spirit, his servants told him, ‘Let us find a good musician to play the harp whenever the tormenting spirit troubles you. He will play soothing music, and you will soon be well again’ (1 Samuel 16:16 NLT). Jesus said, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you’ (John 14:27 NIV). That means wherever you go, you can take the peace of God with you.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

When you move into a different house, you arrange a date for movers to come; you change the phone, electricity, and internet to your new address; and you place your belongings in boxes marked bedroom, kitchen, and living room, etc. Preparing for the next phase of your life is similar. Here are some tips to follow so you will be ready for whatever doors God opens: 1) Compose a plan for financial independence. This involves insurance, retirement, and estate planning. Your insurance policies should also cover your mortgage in case you become incapacitated and unable to work. 2) Always give yourself flexibility. After you have run the first half of the race of life, you may decide to switch direction. What you want to do right now may change twenty years from now, or it may be different from what you wanted to do twenty years ago. The delightful thing about life is that no matter how old you are, you can always begin again, and opportunities may exist in the future that you can’t predict now. 3) Stay current with technology, a major part of modern society. Those unable or unwilling to utilise the latest technological tools will have a hard time succeeding. In addition to technology, it’s important that you stay up to date with developments in additional business skills; communication, negotiation, and etiquette are all essential to succeeding in a changing world. Solomon wrote, ‘People may make plans in their minds, but the LORD decides what they will do.’ So, the word for today is – prepare for the next phase.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

It’s time to get back in touch with who you really are and your God-given gifts. This may mean confronting certain things you may dislike about yourself and your present situation. Beginning the process is the most difficult part. One approach to do that is to stop seeing yourself as you or others see you, and instead see yourself as God views you. Your vision for yourself is one of the first things that disappears when life gets hard, when you get stuck in sickness or debt or unhappiness. So, get back in touch with that vision! And where you see a disconnection between who you are and how you are currently living, drop the blame and self-accusation for getting off track. Once you do, you will start to detect that what’s inside you is now outside as well, showing in your life. Who you are behind closed doors develops into who you are everywhere. Let yourself see yourself as fresh and new, willing to begin again. Start taking one step at a time. When you see yourself the way God does, you see yourself standing up to say, ‘I am here and ready to use my gifts to live the life I was intended for!’ That puts you in agreement with God who says: ‘Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don’t you see it? I will make a road in the desert and rivers in the dry land.’

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Notice that the Bible doesn’t say, ‘Let the weak call their friends and discuss their weaknesses.’ Or, ‘Let the weak talk about their weaknesses.’ Or, ‘Let the weak whine about their weaknesses.’ No, it basically says, ‘Let the weak say the opposite of how they feel.’ So instead of talking about the way you are, talk about the way you desire to be. Talk about what God’s Word says you can be, have, and experience. If you get up each morning feeling exhausted and beaten down, instead of groaning about it, you need to declare, ‘I am strong in the Lord. This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it’ (see Psalm 118:24). When you do that, you will not only alter how you feel but also your attitude. You won’t step into the day with a tired, defeated mentality. You will go out with a winning mentality, with a bounce in your step, with a grin on your face, and with your shoulders squared. When God’s Word becomes your word, it will lift your spirit and help you see yourself and your situations a whole new way. Jesus said, ‘Whoever says to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says’ (Mark 11:23 NKJV). Note the words ‘he will have whatever he says’. So, each day look in the mirror and say, ‘Good morning you blessed, strong, secure, confident, highly favoured child of God.’ In other words, speak ‘life’.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Make sure your words agree with God’s Word, then send your words on the path you want your life to travel. What are you speaking about your future? Your family? Your finances? Your health? If you’re going through a difficult time right now, don’t merely use your words to describe your situation, use them to change it. When what you say lines up with what God says, you give life to your faith. So, start saying, ‘I can do all things through Christ. I am blessed. I am strong. I am healthy.’ When you talk that way, you have just blessed your life. This is not some glib, mind-over-matter philosophy, it is Bible truth! Begin to send your words out in the direction you want your life to go. Maybe you have been let down. The relationship ended. You didn’t land the promotion. Instead of complaining and saying, ‘Well, what did I expect? I never win,’ your declaration should be, ‘I realise that when one door closes, God opens another. And what was meant for my harm, God will use for my good (see Genesis 50:20). I will come out of this better off than I was before’ (see Romans 8:28). What you say about yourself is more important than what anybody else says. The words that go out of your mouth come right back into your own ears, and eventually they create the same image on the inside. So, begin to speak God’s Word over your situation. In other words, speak ‘life’.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which links Brooklyn to Manhattan Island, is one of the most famous bridges in the world. When it was first conceived in 1867, bridge-building experts throughout the world told the designer, a creative engineer by the name of John Roebling, that his idea wouldn’t work. Roebling convinced his son Washington, who was also an engineer, that his idea had merit. The two of them developed a concept, resolved the problems others had forecast, and enthusiastically hired a crew to build the bridge. After only a few months of building, a tragic on-site accident took John’s life, and another event months later severely injured Washington, who became unable to talk or walk. Everyone thought the project would be abandoned, since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew the dynamics of building the bridge. Washington, however, could still think, and he had a burning desire to see the bridge finished. As he lay in his hospital bed, he had an idea. He would communicate with the engineers by using one finger to tap out in code on his wife’s arm what he wanted her to tell them. Washington tapped out his instructions for thirteen years until the bridge was built! That’s the conquering spirit. The apostle Paul talks about it this way: ‘We have troubles all around us, but we are not defeated. We do not know what to do, but we do not give up the hope of living. We are persecuted, but God does not leave us. We are hurt sometimes, but we are not destroyed’ (vv. 8-9 NCV). Those words constitute the conquering spirit – the spirit God can give you.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

A minister writes: ‘To the average eye, it was a mutilated piece of marble. The aborted sculpture had been abandoned a half century earlier…but a young artist named Michelangelo saw something in that stone others did not. Chiselling the eighteen-foot block of marble would consume nearly four years of his life, but that seemingly worthless stone was destined to become what many consider the greatest statue ever sculpted…Michelangelo resurrected a dead stone and, breathing his artistry into it, brought David into existence. As he chiselled…he believed the masterpiece was already inside the stone. All he had to do was remove the excess stone so David could escape. He didn’t see what was. He saw what could be…He didn’t see the imperfections in the stone. He saw a masterpiece of unparalleled beauty. And that is precisely how the Artist [God] sees you. “We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Every work of art originates in the imagination of the artist. And so you originated in the imagination of God. You were conceived by God long before you were conceived by your parents. You took shape in the imagination of the Almighty before you took shape in your mother’s womb.’ Regardless of what others think of you, or what you think of yourself, God sees you as a potential masterpiece. To see yourself as anything other than that is to devalue and alter your true identity. And it’s in discovering your true identity that you discover God has a plan for your life.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

A pastor writes: ‘God used a seemingly random skill to strategically position David. And the slingshot skill isn’t the only example…When David played the harp, it soothed Saul’s spirit [see 1 Samuel 16:23]. That’s how David met Jonathan [King Saul’s son]. That’s how he learned the customs of the king’s court. Without his musical skills, David wouldn’t have even gotten a foot in the door! You never know what skill God will use for His purposes, so don’t underestimate the strangest of skills. God can use anything…for His purposes if we simply allow ourselves to be used by Him. God used Noah’s boat-building skills, Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams, and the Magi’s astrological knowledge. No skill is unredeemable or unusable in God’s grand scheme…But here’s what you need to see: the greatest psalms came out of the worst circumstances…The most comforting psalms were written in the most uncomfortable situations. David is walking through the valley of the shadow of death. David is agonising over his adulterous affair with Bathsheba. David is a fugitive hiding out in the caves of Adullam. David didn’t want to be in any of those situations, but [they] produced the profound lyrics we find in Psalm 23, Psalm 51, and Psalm 142. Maybe you’re wrestling with depression or reeling from a mistake that seems unforgivable, or just sick and tired of being sick and tired…So you may not like your present circumstances, but they may be the key to your character development. And character development is the key to your future.’

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

One key to fulfilling your destiny is realising what season you’re in. If you don’t, you will feel exasperated and disappointed. For example, in some seasons learning to follow is more important than learning to lead. In some seasons handling failure offers more value than handling success. One of the biggest errors we make is concentrating all our energy on the next season, rather than enjoying the season we’re in, maximising it, and gleaning its lessons. God wants to get you where He wants you to go even more than you want to get there. So, enjoy the journey, and understand that God will get you there when you’re ready. Your present frustration will give you a reason for future celebration if you stay the course long enough. God is developing emotional endurance inside you. The key to emotional endurance is going through high levels of disappointment that break us down so God can build us back up with a holy confidence. Can you imagine how David felt as he watched his brothers go off to war while he stayed home to tend a flock of sheep? But his day was coming. And yours is too. While you wait, don’t bypass God’s plans by taking shortcuts. God is setting you up. But the bigger the opportunity, the longer it takes. The reason we get irritated is because we think big without thinking long. Reconsider your timeline, and be encouraged when it takes longer than you estimated. That means God wants to do something considerably more than all you can ask or imagine (see Ephesians 3:20).

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.