– Life requires so much of us.
– Have you ever thought about how much you have been through in the course of your life?
– Perhaps right now you are facing many challenges simultaneously.
– I sometimes wonder how individuals can face life with its joys and sadness, success and failure, and breakthrough, and hurdles, without God in their lives.
– At the end of the day, without God, who do you turn to, or what do you turn to.
– The truth of the matter is that we need God in our lives.
– Perhaps we can do without Him when everything is going well, but when trouble comes, then we need Him like never before.
– In my personal life I have seen God work in wonderful ways and do wonderful things for me and through me, but I have also seen great challenges and struggles. I have concluded that my life is better with God in it. Knowing that God is with me allows me to enjoy the good times and make sense of the bad times.
– Knowing God is in our lives also gives us purpose and meaning, and ultimately it gives us the hope of life after our earthly existence.
– Even our ultimate enemy, death, makes sense when God is in the equation.
– My life is better with God in it and your life can also be better, knowing that He is a part of every aspect of your life, the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, and in the desperate and in the delightful.
– Life is better with God.
1. WITH GOD IN OUR LIVES, WE HAVE SOMEONE TO LOOK TO.
– I had the honour of growing up in a Christian home with a good father. With him in our lives things always seemed to go well, even in tough times. When he died at 57, the challenges came in waves and seemed insurmountable. It sometimes amazes me the difference one person can make in our lives. In our earthly father we found someone we could look to for strength, courage, hope and vision.
– When we have God in our lives, we can discover that we have a Heavenly Father.
– We can look to our Heavenly Father for all that we may ever need in the course of life.
– We see this clearly illustrated in the life of Peter.
– Matthew 14:29-30 Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. ‘Save me, Lord!’ he shouted.
– As long as Peter kept his eyes on Jesus, he could achieve the impossible, walking on water, but when he shifted his focus to the circumstances, he sank.
– If we don’t have God in our lives, what else do we have to look to, except the circumstances?
– If we are going to avoid sinking, we need to have someone bigger than ourselves and our circumstances to look to.
– You can look to the Lord today.
– He is able to do even more than you can ask or think.
2. WITH GOD IN OUR LIVES, WE HAVE HOPE.
– Hope is such an essential ingredient in life.
– I recently heard a medical person speaking on a program about depression. He mentioned that at its root depression could be traced to a loss of hope.
– Hope is that ingredient that gets us up in the morning.
– Hope is far more than just a wish or a desire.
– Imagine, for a moment, that you are travelling on a ship. The ship begins to sink, and you realise that you are facing certain tragedy. Everyone wishes and desires to be saved from that situation, but that does not change anything. Then you hear that a passing ship is on its way to your stricken vessel. Suddenly you have hope in something beyond the horizon, something beyond yourself, that can step into a hopeless situation and rescue you. That is hope.
– For Christians, hope is a confident assurance deep within us and it is rooted in our expectation that God will do what He has promised and that we can depend on His faithfulness.
– Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance (confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen.
– Ultimately hope is something that comes from God and is planted in our hearts by Him.
– Romans 15:13 ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you will abound in hope and overflow with confidence in His promises.’
– Finally hope is an anchor in our lives.
– Hebrews 6:19 This hope [this confident assurance] we have as an anchor of the soul [it cannot slip, and it cannot break down under whatever pressure bears upon it] – a safe and steadfast hope that enters within the veil [of the heavenly temple, that most Holy Place in which the very presence of God dwells].
– Hope connects us to God.
– Our lives are better with God because we can have real hope.
3. WITH GOD IN OUR LIVES, WE HAVE A HELPER.
– There is a hymn with the following line: ‘Oh God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.’
– God is a Helper; His desire is to help us.
– Sooner or later we all need some help.
– One of the Names of God means helper.
– Eleazar means ‘God is my Helper’. It comes from two Hebrew words – ‘el’, which means ‘God’ or ‘all powerful’, and ‘ezer’ which means ‘help’.
– It is part of God’s nature and character to extend help to us.
– The Lord wants to be your ‘Eleazar’.
– Psalm 46:1 ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.’
– Isaiah 41:10 ‘Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.’
– Our lives are better with God in them because we have a Helper in Him, and He will help us.
4. WITH GOD IN OUR LIVES, EACH DAY CAN BE SWEETER THAN THE DAY BEFORE.
– There is another song that tells us about this idea.
– The song is entitled: ‘Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before!’
– Every day with Jesus
Is sweeter than the day before
Every day with Jesus
I love Him more and more,
Jesus saves and keeps me
And He’s the One I’m waiting for;
Every day with Jesus
Is sweeter than the day before.
– With God in our lives, we can discover more and more about Him.
– Our relationship with the Lord is like a voyage of discovery, where each day brings with it a new perspective, a new vista, and a new appreciation.
– Our relationship with God can grow until we reach that sweetest moment of all when we will see Him face to face.
– 1 Corinthians 13:12 For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes, we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God].
5. OUR LIVES ARE BETTER WITH GOD!
– Why would we walk the road of life alone, when we can walk it with the One Who loves and cares for us – the One Who made us.
– The Lord is our Good Shepherd, the Lord is our ever-present help in times of trouble. When trouble comes, He is our hope and strength.
– Each one of us is walking this road with our Saviour and He will show us the way we should go.
– In good times and in bad times, He is the One we need.
– Each day can be another day to follow Him in all we say and do.
– The adventure that is our walk of faith with God takes us from strength to strength and from glory to glory.
– And one day we will see Him face to face and know the One Who truly knows us and know the One Who has walked with us all the way, even when we did not realise it.
– Psalm 23:6 ‘Surely Your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.’
– Hebrews 12:2 ‘Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith!’
By Pastor Andrew Roebert
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