UCB Word For Today

James writes: ‘Be glad, even if you have a lot of trouble. You know you learn to endure by having your faith tested. But you must learn to endure everything, so you will be completely mature and not lacking in anything. If any of you need wisdom, you should ask God, and it will be given to you…But when you ask…you must have faith…Anyone who doubts is like an ocean wave tossed around in a storm. If you are that kind of person, you can’t make up your mind, and you surely can’t be trusted. So don’t expect the Lord to give you anything at all’ (vv. 2-8 CEV). Note three things in this Scripture: 1) Your faith grows when it’s tested. You’ll never know the strength of your anchor until you feel the blast of the storm. 2) God will give you wisdom to handle the test. Now, He won’t answer all your ‘whys’. So instead of questioning Him, you need to pray, ‘Lord, how do You want to use this trial to develop me spiritually? How can I co-operate with You to reap the maximum benefit? What changes do You desire to bring about in my life?’ Those are questions God will answer. 3) You must be willing to obey. It’s possible to ask God for wisdom, then debate, stall, or mess around trying to decide whether or not to obey Him. ‘If you’re that kind of person…don’t expect the Lord to give you anything at all.’ When God gives you His wisdom, your first response should be: ‘Speak, for your servant is listening’ (1 Samuel 3:10 NIV).

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

Paul wrote: ‘If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God’ (vv. 17-20 NIVUK). Sometimes our first reaction to learning that a fellow believer has fallen is to rush to the phone and say, ‘Did you hear about?’ Or point an accusing finger. Or distance ourselves from that person at the very time he or she needs our prayers, love, and support. The Bible says: ‘Above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins”’ (1 Peter 4:8 NKJV). If the hurting cannot find mercy in the family of God, where are they going to find it? Rather than join those who point accusing fingers, we should be known as those who extend a helping hand. Jesus did that with Simon Peter: ‘Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren’ (Luke 22:31-32 NKJV). Just as God has repeatedly extended His grace to you when you have fallen short of the mark, He is calling you to extend that same grace to others.

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

If you study famous musicians, you’ll often find that they learned their craft by playing in a band or orchestra. That’s because certain skills – learning to blend with other instruments, keeping tempo, learning to play louder or softer, following the conductor’s lead – can only be learned by playing with others. And what’s true of a band or orchestra is even truer of a community of believers. Jesus illustrated this in His famous parable of the talents (see Matthew 25:14-30). One man was given five talents and ended up with ten. Another man was given two talents and ended up with four. A third man was given one talent, and he buried it. In a sense, Jesus was talking about people playing their parts and how important that is to God’s kingdom. Not everyone plays the same instrument, and not everyone has the same part. Some instruments are louder than others, and some parts are bigger than others. It’s not how much you have that matters to Jesus; it’s what you do with what you have that matters to Him. There are no insignificant talents in God’s kingdom. Our talents may differ in amount, but they all come from the same source. All Christ wants you to do is play your part. He does not expect the same results, but He does expect the same effort. He never compares you with anyone else. He compares you only with you. He doesn’t look at what you have; He looks at what you do with what you have. So just play your part.

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

When you face a crisis it’s easy to lose perspective. It happened to two of Christ’s disciples on the Emmaus Road. Discouraged about His death, they were ‘going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their…questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognise who he was’ (vv. 14-16 MSG). When you take your eyes off Jesus, you start to feel helpless about your situation. Dr Michael Youssef says: ‘Facing a major crisis, I tend to be the kind of person whose vision becomes blurred. My perceptions are shot. My contemplations are one-sided. I often shut out the very people who can deliver me, just like those two disciples…Their vision was blurred about the person who was walking with them and talking to them. The one whose death they were mourning was alive…but they didn’t realise it because their focus was on the wrong thing.’ But everything changed the minute they recognised Jesus. ‘Within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There…the two…told…how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along…and how they had recognised him as he was breaking the bread’ (vv. 33-35 NLT). Note the words ‘within the hour’. In an instant they went from fear to courage, pain to joy, and despair to hope. Paul wrote, ‘I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened’ (Ephesians 1:18 NIV). When you stop focusing on the problem and fix your eyes on Jesus, you get 20/20 vision and you’re filled with hope.

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

Satan is called ‘the accuser of our brethren’ because he tries to remind us of everything we’ve done wrong. Why? So that all our emotional energy is spent on the past, and we’ve nothing left over to dream God-sized dreams or fulfil our God-given assignment in life. The irony of his accusations is this: he leaves our unconfessed sins alone. Why wake a sleeping dog? He’d rather you don’t deal with unconfessed sin at all. His accusations pinpoint confessed sin – sins that have already been forgiven. That is why they are false accusations; the sins have already been acquitted. Now let’s stop and make a critical distinction. Condemnation is feeling guilty over confessed sin, whereas conviction is feeling guilty over unconfessed sin. Conviction is the way we get right with God and get on with our lives. So, learn to tune in the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit and tune out the condemning voice of the enemy. The Bible says: ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9 NKJV). If we plead innocent, we’re guilty as charged. Even Jesus our advocate can’t come to our defence. But if we plead guilty as charged, we’re found innocent, and we come under God’s protective custody. Our record of wrong is completely expunged. And there is no double jeopardy – you cannot be tried twice for the same sin. Once confessed, your sins are forgiven once and for all. The sinless Son of God took the blame, took the hit, and took the fall for you (see 1 John 3:5).

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