07 Jun Finding Assurance In Uncertainties
Man dreads uncertainty because he has no control over it.
<Ecc 9> 11 I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.
12 Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net,
or birds are taken in a snare,
so people are trapped by evil times
that fall unexpectedly upon them.
- Man cannot control Time and Chance <v11>.
- God doesn’t give man full control Man won’t be proud and self-reliant.
- God wants to give us something better than Control God Himself!
- Uncertainty both a challenge and an opportunity.
Counter uncertainty with FAITH!
- (NIV, 1984 version) Heb 11:1: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
- Have greatest faith when there is least certainty/clarity.
- [Standalone] Mother Teresa: “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”
- “Clarity” can become an idol that supplants our faith in God.
- Do we prefer faith or clarity (certainty)?
- Bible asks us to both trust and obey God.
- Faith, not certainty, is what pleases God <Heb 11:6>.
What can we do by faith during uncertainties?
1)Find peace from God’s unchanging character and sure truth.
- <Heb 13:8> Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
- Often, our uncertainty is only a “felt” insecurity; God is still secure.
- Build our peace not on the foundation of “known outcomes”, but on God.
2) Find out how God wants to change me through the uncertainties.
- God is more interested in how I am transformed than how my situation changes.
- Wrestle till can say, “Lord, not my will, but Yours be done.”
3) Focus on today, instead of worrying about tomorrow.
- <Mt 6:34> “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
- Counting blessings today will give assurance for tomorrow.
- “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength” – Corrie Ten Boom.
- Worry means we care about something more than God.
- Anxiety stops when we let God be the King in our concerns.
- Bring specific worries to God in prayer.
- Restore ‘assurance in the greater (God)’ to ease our ‘anxiety in the lesser’.
4) Make God’s kingdom our priority.
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