UCB Word For Today

A spiritual pathway has to do with the way you most naturally sense God’s presence and experience spiritual growth. We all have at least one pathway that comes most easily to us. And there’s enormous freedom in identifying and embracing your spiritual pathway. It means you can focus on relating to God in that way. For the next few days, let’s look at some different spiritual pathways and see which one’s yours. First let’s examine the intellectual pathway. When you are on this pathway, you draw closer to God as you learn more about Him. You love to study Scripture. When you go to church, you often find yourself marking time during the musical worship until the sermon starts. When you are faced with a crisis or a spiritual challenge, you tend to go into analytic, problem-solving mode. You identify with the words of Jesus when He said, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your…mind’ (Luke 10:27 NKJV). The danger of this pathway lies in becoming all head and no heart. Dallas Willard once observed that it is extremely difficult to be right and not to hurt everybody with it. That’s why Paul wrote: ‘Knowledge puffs up while love builds up’ (1 Corinthians 8:1 NIV). The New Living Translation says: ‘While knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognises’ (1 Corinthians 8:1-3 NLT). So be sure your growth in knowledge is balanced with growth in humility and love.

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

God can deliver you from anything in a single day, but you’ve got to back it up with daily discipline. If you don’t practise spiritual discipline day in and day out, your deliverance will be short-lived. You’ll fall back into whatever it was that God delivered you from. Anybody can set a life goal; the hard part is going after it every day. You get into shape one workout at a time. You get out of debt one pay cheque at a time. Whatever goal you are going after, you have to take it one step at a time, one day at a time! Notice that Paul didn’t just say, ‘Walk not after the flesh’; he also said to walk ‘after the Spirit’ (see Romans 8:4). Deciding you are against something is only half the battle. The other half is deciding you are for something. Dallas Willard once said, ‘Not going to London or Atlanta is a poor plan for going to New York.’ That’s obvious, but that’s how many of us approach spiritual formation. We try to not sin by not sinning. But if you’re focused on what you shouldn’t do – you probably won’t do what you should. Jesus said, ‘I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16:18 KJV). Jesus didn’t say you will build your church. It’s not yours; it’s His. And that goes for your business, your school, your family, etc. It’s not yours; it’s His. So, the pressure is off you. And if you’re focused on walking in obedience, He will fight your battles for you!

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

Much could be said about Rahab without mentioning her profession. She was a Canaanite. She provided cover for the spies of Joshua. She came to believe in the God of Abraham before she ever met the children of Abraham. She was spared in the destruction of her city. She married a contemporary of Joshua’s, bore a son named Boaz, had a great-grandson named Jesse, a great-great-grandson named David, and a descendant named Jesus. Yes, Rahab’s name appears on the family tree of the Son of God. Her CV needn’t mention her profession. Yet in five of the eight appearances in Scripture, she’s called a ‘harlot’. Five! It’s even attached to her name in the book of Hebrews’ Hall of Faith (chapter 11). The list includes Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses – and then, all of a sudden, ‘the harlot Rahab’. No asterisk, no footnote, no apology. Her history is part of her testimony. ‘By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish.’ Think about this carefully: her profession of faith mattered more than her profession as a harlot. Maybe your past is a chequered one. Maybe your peers don’t share your faith. Maybe your pedigree is one of violence and your ancestry one of rebellion. If so, then Rahab is your model. We don’t drop scarlet cords from our windows, but we trust in the crimson thread of Christ’s blood. We don’t prepare for the coming of a Hebrew army, but we live with an eye towards the second coming of our Joshua – Jesus Christ. And the God who redeemed and redirected Rahab will do the same for you if you surrender your life to Him.

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

In his classic book called Prayer, Dr O. Hallesby wrote: ‘Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only those who are helpless can truly pray…Prayer therefore consists simply in telling God day by day in what ways we feel helpless. We are moved to pray every time the Spirit of God…emphasises anew to us our helplessness, and we realise how impotent we are by nature to believe, to love, to hope, to serve, to sacrifice, to suffer, to read the Bible, to pray, and to struggle against our sinful desires.’ Now let’s be clear: feeling helpless is different from feeling hopeless or worthless; it’s simply acknowledging our total dependence on God. Jesus said, ‘Without Me you can do nothing’ (John 15:5 NKJV). God will never give you an assignment that does not require His input, His favour, and His enabling grace. Every action of God in your life is designed to increase, not decrease, your dependence on Him. If you can do it without God, you should stop and ask yourself, ‘Is this truly of God?’ Paul wrote: ‘We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us’ (2 Corinthians 3:4-6 NLT). David enjoyed all the privileges of being a king, yet he wrote: ‘I am poor and needy; yet the LORD thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer’ (Psalm 40:17 NKJV). So, the word for today is – never, ever, lose your sense of dependence on God.

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

After David killed Goliath, four other men, including his nephew Jonathan, killed giants that rose up against the Israelites. ‘In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot – twenty-four in all. He was also descended from Rapha. When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, David’s brother, killed him’ (2 Samuel 21:20-21 NIV). David had raised the bar. Witnessing the defeat of what others had previously deemed impossible gave them the strength to overcome their own giants. Until 1954, no one had ever run a mile in under four minutes, and most people assumed it was virtually impossible. But on 6th May 1954, at an Oxford University track meet, Roger Bannister completed the distance in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. He had slain the giant. Two months later, Australian John Landy broke Bannister’s record, proving that the four-minute mile was as much a psychological as a physical barrier. In the first half of the twentieth century, many people attempted to climb Mount Everest and failed. It was the unconquerable giant in the world of mountain climbers. On 29th May 1953, Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, were the first humans to reach the summit. Since then, over a thousand climbers, ranging from age sixteen to sixty, have completed the expedition. David, Bannister, and Hillary all conquered giants of their day and inspired others to match and excel in their feats. You do yourself and others a disservice when you run from your giant. You need to stop being afraid to tackle hard tasks and remind yourself, ‘If God did it before, He can do it again, and if He did it for others, He can do it for me.’

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