Tired, Weary and Aching

Isaiah 40:29

He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power.

I am ministering to myself today, tonight actually. It is late in the evening and I owe you a Word of the Day in the morning. I am tired, weary even, my back hurts and I just do not have the strength in myself to produce a Word of the Day. What shall I do? Fortunately, as we all know, our Father gives strength to the weary. What may distinguish me from some people is that I know from experience that I can call upon Him in this time of need. I have had to rely on His strength before.

I hope you have the means to find strength, encouragement and the wisdom for every need. I use www.biblegateway.com to help me find verses to fit my need. I also have a link to Bible Gateway on my website so that you will always be able to find the help you need. Our Word of the Day is archived on our website. It is also searchable. You can find every time in the last ten or so years when I have written about a specific topic. We also have an “Ask Ivey” section on the website where you can write your question and I will answer you. To access any of these resources go to www.iveyministries.org.

Our Father will lead you to passages from His book, which will strengthen and encourage you. I sat down tonight with my computer and searched Bible Gateway for the two words which were most prominent in my mind: strength and weary. You see that Father gave me a perfect verse. He met me at my point of need and filled me. He will do this for you too.

If you are tired and do not feel up to the task ahead, keep re-reading today’s verse and let it minister strength to you.

Strength and Courage

Psalm 27: 14

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.
This is certainly a good verse for teaching about waiting on the Lord. I was really intrigued, though, over the line, “let your heart take courage.” I see in those words that we must make a decision to be encouraged. We have to decide to let our hearts fill with encouragement. You can choose to be discouraged or you can choose to be encouraged. Perhaps it takes strength to allow yourself to stand in courage instead of living in discouragement because David tells us to be strong. Certainly, in waiting on the Lord, you must decide to “faint not.” That means, don’t give up. Don’t give up on God or let your faith founder while you are waiting. Waiting in faith does take backbone. You have to decide to stand regardless of the appearance of the situation around you. You must decide to keep on confessing words of faith even when the circumstances appear bleak. You have to decide to let your heart be filled with courage. You can even learn to encourage yourself when you don’t have an encourager to do it for you. You purposefully decide to be of good courage. You purposefully decide to believe God and his word instead of letting your heart fall into discouragement. If you have felt discouragement lately, take heart; be of good courage because now you know that you can affect the condition of your heart. Allow yourself to be encouraged. Allow your heart to be filled with courage. The Word of God is the best encourager there is. Get in there and let your heart be full of the encouragement of the Lord.

Building a Body

1 Thessalonians 5: 11

Therefore, encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

Each day presents us with opportunities to interact with other people. Do we ignore people or do we say a friendly “Hello?” Do we spend more time tearing people down or building them up? You have so much power. You can strongly affect other people’s day or even their self-esteem. And how do we talk to children? Do we allow them to make mistakes and encourage them or are we always critical and reproving? Do you encourage and build up the children around you? I wish to encourage you to use your power for good. Reach out to people. Say “Hello” to strangers. Encourage someone who is down or who makes a mistake. Build people up and make them stronger. And pray for others as you do. You will be doing your heavenly Father a big favor and he will be very proud of you. 

Leadership 101

1 Thessalonians 5: 11

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

I wrote in the spring on Hebrews 3: 13 which reads, “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Over these last four months God has been showing me, increasingly, how important it is to be an encourager. Additionally, He has shown me that encouragement is one of Jesus’ leadership traits. Before this year I would likely not have included encouragement in a list of leadership traits. I would have been wrong. The Lord is showing that in order to become the leader He has ordained you to be, you must embrace the responsibility of encouragement.

Encouragement, as we see from today’s verse, builds a person up. A large part of leadership is building up others. All too often our model of leadership is in the correcting of others. I found an amazing quote in a book I am reading. The book is Becoming the Person You Want to Be by Dr. Jim Richards. Dr. Richards wrote, “As leaders we have assumed people didn’t really want to move forward. We have blamed their lack of faith. We have questioned their commitment. We have told them they needed to try harder, pray more, cry out to God, and a plethora of other ‘spiritual gymnastics.’ But the truth is we have never given them the right key.” In other words, when people are not succeeding at the level we are or at the level we think they should be, we question their motivation, their commitment and even their faith. Richards points out that most often those people simply have not been given the appropriate tools for success.

As ministers, we can certainly be guilty of this. Our parishioners’ lack of success is a negative reflection on us. If we do not have an answer then we can easily blame the lack of success on their faith or their commitment. Perhaps, though, if the student is not learning, we should inquire of the teacher. I admit to being challenged by this passage from Dr. Richards because I want to be the leader God called me to be. Bit by bit I am learning that only comes with the power to encourage others. We must become builders of people. 

Yahweh, our Father, has called every one of us as a builder of the kingdom. The Kingdom of God, however, is not made of brick and mortar. It is not built of evangelical trips to the Congo. It is not even in the Holy Sacraments. The Kingdom of God is Yahweh’s people. Until we place a value on the building up of God’s people we will continue to miss the mark. 

Every one of you has been called to great things in the Kingdom of God. Don’t doubt it. Let us help each other to become all that God as ordained us to be. We can be the leaders, mentors and teachers who help people attain their highest ambitions. Let’s encourage one another in this pursuit.

Answer Desk

John 14: 6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”

There is so much in this verse but I want to focus on just one narrow aspect of it today and hopefully bring light, answers and freedom to people. That narrow focus is that Jesus is the way, the answer. So, think of someone you can forward this to today.

One day while sitting at my desk working I was thunder struck by all the trouble and problems people have. I really do not know how people who don’t have Jesus work through all of the junk that life puts in the way. As I probed the issue, though, I realized that many of us Christians are not living in the fullness of the victory that Jesus has won for us. I see people struggling with problems and I know the answer God has for them and yet they never turn to God for the solution. I have some mini-books lying on my desk and as I look at them I think how just one of these little books could set someone free if only they would seek help. 

Not only does God have an answer, He is the answer. Jesus didn’t pay the price that he paid so that we would continue to wrestle with problems. He taught us, in fact, that he had already overcome all of the troubles we would face. Why, then are we not living in his answers? Why are we overcome with problems? 

I am not going to pretend I have all of the answers. I still have challenge areas too. I can share with you what the Father is teaching me though. I have noticed that my problem solving process is entirely too egocentric. I ask myself, “What am I going to do about this.” You can see in that one sentence the real problem. There are three pronouns which have to do with me. There is problem. Even when I get out of myself enough to pray about the situation I often ask Dad what I should do. Increasingly His answer has been, “Nothing.” You see, I am not the savior and while that is very evident the truth is that within the boundaries of own our lives most of us do act like we are our personal deliverers. We are the problem solvers. We are the fixers. No wonder we are drowning. If I could have done these things for myself, Jesus need not have come. 

Very few of us pick up the phone and call another, even for encouragement or prayer. We rarely call or write seeking advice or inspired scripture. We don’t even pick up these little booklets written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and I believe the reason why is ego. To call someone else is to admit weakness. Oh God forbid! Furthermore, it is an admission that they may know more than we or be more spiritually mature. Well, here is the rub. Not calling proves we are not mature spiritually. Another reason we don’t reach out is because we have guilt in our lives. We already know we are not doing as we ought and we do not want to receive recrimination. 

Part of the solution is that if we are called, if someone does ask for help, we need to make sure that we encourage and edify them rather than belittle them. They already feel small and inadequate. Secondly, don’t give them your worldly advice. If you cannot seek the Father and His counsel or give them relevant scriptures then refer them to someone who can. Refer them to a book even.

Guys, I entreat you. There is no need for us to suffer as we do. Let us all go get the help we need. Let us dare to pick up a “good for us” book and let the author minister life. Call your pastor, call me and ask what book may help. There is so much help available and no need for us to continue to go around the same mountain again and again. No matter how smart you think you are, God just knows way more and has seen it all before. He can give you the answer in a second. Let’s retire as the lords of our lives and just see if there is something Jesus can do. Let’s end the suffering for ourselves and our friends. God is the answer and He really will help in every single little and big situation. Don’t wait until you are drowning to reach out. At the first indication of trouble, call your praying friends and if you don’t have friends who pray, it is time to get new friends.

Lastly, no matter where you are in the world, we at Ivey Ministries are here for you. This is our passion. We want to see God’s people living free. The Word of the Day is being read in many different countries now and on six continents. Where ever you are, whoever you are, we are praying for you and will always be here to help in the time of need.

Compassion

Luke 7: 13

When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, “Do not weep.”

I have lately been strongly impressed with the importance of compassion in Christ’s ministry and his personality. There are seventeen places in the New Testament which speak about compassion. That is a significant number of entries. It turns out that Jesus got his compassion from his father. Romans 9: 15 reads, “For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” The point is that compassion is a behavioral and personality characteristic which is important to our heavenly father. 

The dictionary defines compassion as “the deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another in the inclination to give aid or support, or to show mercy.” Wow! That is a powerful ideology and doesn’t it sound exactly like Jesus? Now we see why so many times the scriptures say that Jesus was “moved” by compassion. Compassion is not the same as pity. Compassion invokes action. When we look again at Romans 9: 15, where Yahweh is talking about showing mercy and compassion, we can now comprehend that His compassion stimulated Him to action. Because of His great compassion He moves on our behalf. 

In today’s verse we see that Jesus felt compassion for a woman. If we will read one verse more we will find that he then did something. He didn’t just feel sad for her and say, “Oh, I am so sorry for your suffering.” He did something. He raised her son, restoring him from death to life. Okay, that is doing something!

Compassion, encouragement, love, acceptance, forgiveness and forbearance, these are the bricks and mortar of Christianity. It isn’t in how many Bible verses you can quote. It isn’t in how much service you offer at church. The life of Christ in you is seen in how you extend the love of God to those around you. I see so clearly today how Jesus comes along side us and is filled with joy when we, out of the overflow of our hearts, express his essential nature. This isn’t something we do. It actually is allowing the life of Christ within you, his nature, his compassion, to flow out from you. It is a living testimony of the love of Christ in his people. And it is how you evangelize the world and disciple nations. Let Christ in all his glory be expressed through you.

Do you want to find the real church leaders, the one’s that the Holy Spirit recognizes? Go look for those people who reach out from themselves with compassion and encouragement. Look at who is actually praying for others rather than talking about it or discussing doctrine. See who responds when news is received. Who picks up the phone and calls just to offer an encouraging word or a prayer? Who is it that always seems to find a way to bless their friends, neighbors and even people they don’t know? Those are the true leaders in the body of Christ. They are not always the celebrated in the earth but the angels know their names. God bless you, the encouragers, the compassionate, the beloved.

Leadership Trait

2 Chronicles 32: 1 – 8

After these acts of faithfulness Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah and besieged the fortified cities, and thought to break into them for himself.  Now when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to make war on Jerusalem,  he decided with his officers and his warriors to cut off the supply of water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. So many people assembled and stopped up all the springs and the stream which flowed through the region, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?”  And he took courage and rebuilt all the wall that had been broken down and erected towers on it, and built another outside wall and strengthened the Millo in the city of David, and made weapons and shields in great number.  He appointed military officers over the people and gathered them to him in the square at the city gate, and spoke encouragingly to them, saying,  “Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria nor because of all the horde that is with him; for the one with us is greater than the one with him.  With him is only an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people relied on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.

You’ve heard it said that attitude determines altitude. A person’s attitude towards the situations of life determines how they will come through those circumstances. King Hezekiah shows us the attitude of a good leader.

The scripture says that in the face of Sennacherib’s threats Hezekiah gathered the people and spoke encouragingly to them. That is what we should be doing. Encouragement is a big deal. In fact, God has told us to encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5: 11). Since discovering that God commands us to be encouragers I have been watching people. Some people are very good at it. Some people even seem anointed of God as encouragers. Then I discovered something. Leaders are encouragers. It turns out that encouraging others is a big part of what it means to be a leader. I didn’t know that.

Hezekiah saw that the threat to the people of Judah was not only to their persons but first to their psyche. The Assyrians were not knocking on their door for a tea party. Hezekiah knew that people would begin to be afraid so he gathered them together and encouraged them. You don’t have to hang out with God, the Father very long to find out where Hezekiah learned this skill. God constantly encourages and uplifts. We have all heard this verse from Ephesians, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear” (4: 29). We have focused on restricting unwholesome words but there is a second mandate; make it a point to speak words which build people up. That is what edification is, building people up. When someone does a good job, leaders tell them so.

I wonder sometimes if we have become such a broken people that we feel like we are diminishing ourselves if we lift others up. Really the opposite is true. We build ourselves when we lift others. This is such a big deal that the Apostle Paul wrote about it at least five times. I like what he wrote in Romans 15: 2, “Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.” Did you know this was the message of Christianity? Can’t say that I did but now none of us have the excuse of ignorance any longer. We have all been called by Christ as leaders. We are the ones who are supposed to be encouraging the frightened, and lifting up the weary. Start today being an encourager. If you cannot find someone to encourage, you aren’t trying very hard. Be a blessing of the Lord.