[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

Strength through sharing

‘Many of the believers began to confess openly.’
Acts 19:18 NCV

The UCB Word for Today - 02 FEB 2021

Speaking about the church at Ephesus, Paul writes: ‘Many of the believers began to confess openly and tell all the evil things they had done…So in a powerful way the word of the Lord kept spreading and growing’ (vv. 18-20 NCV). Spiritual healing happens in churches like this one.

So if you find yourself trapped in a pattern of repeated sin and failure, seek out mature, committed Christians who aren’t shocked by your problem, who won’t divulge your confidence, and who know how to pray for you and with you. Jesus gave His followers the authority to hear confessions and proclaim grace.

‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’ (John 20:23 NKJV). A spiritual catharsis takes place when someone looks you in the face and says, ‘God forgives you, I forgive you, now forgive yourself and walk in God’s forgiveness!’

Forgiveness is such a powerful force that it can actually facilitate healing. James writes: ‘Is anyone among you sick?

Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective’ (James 5:14-16 NIV).

And if you’re not sure who you should talk to, or who you can trust, start with your pastor.

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

Sustaining grace

‘My grace is sufficient for you.’
2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV

The UCB Word for Today - 03 FEB 2021

There are two kinds of grace:
1) Saving grace. The moment you place your trust in Christ, God expunges the entire record of your sin.

2) Sustaining grace. Paul writes: ‘I was given a thorn in my flesh…Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”’ (vv. 7-9 NIV).

Such vivid imagery! A thorn pierces the soft skin and lodges beneath the surface.

Every step is a reminder of it: The child in the rehab centre. The red ink on the ledger.

The criminal offence on the record. The craving for alcohol in the middle of the day.

The tears in the middle of the night. ‘Lord, take it away?’ But what you hear is this: ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’

Sustaining grace promises us not the absence of struggle, but the strengthening presence of God. John Newton, the Anglican clergyman who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’, found that God’s grace was sufficient.

On the day his beloved wife, Mary, died, he found the strength to preach a Sunday sermon. The next day he visited church members, and later on officiated at her funeral.

Looking back he wrote: ‘The Bank of England is too poor to compensate for such a loss as mine. But the Lord, all-sufficient God, speaks, and it is done.

Let those who know Him, and trust Him, be of good courage. He can give them strength according to their day.

He can increase their strength as their trials increase…And what He can do, He has promised He will do.’

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

We serve a generous God

‘That you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.’
2 Corinthians 9:8 NKJV

The UCB Word for Today - 04 FEB 2021

God doesn’t just love; He lavishes us with love (see 1 John 3:1 NIV). He doesn’t dole out wisdom; He ‘gives generously to all without finding fault’ (James 1:5 NIV).

The Prodigal Son got the fattest calf, the guests at the wedding in Cana got the best wine, and Peter caught so many fish that his boat started to sink. Paul tells us God ‘supplies seed to the sower’ (2 Corinthians 9:10 NKJV), and the Greek word for ‘supplies’ comes from two roots.

The first means ‘to dance’, and the second means ‘to lead’. It literally means ‘to lead a dance’.

So when God gives to you, He dances for joy. He strikes up the band and leads the giving parade.

He loves to give! One day Peter said to Jesus, ‘We have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?’ (Matthew 19:27 NKJV).

Seems like a good opportunity for Jesus to chastise Peter’s ‘what’s in it for me?’ mentality. But He didn’t. Instead, He assured Peter that we shall receive a hundredfold in this life and inherit eternal life too (see Matthew 19:29).

Jesus promises a gain of 10,000 per cent! If someone gave you ten thousand pounds today for every hundred pounds you gave them yesterday, you might call that person ‘God-generous’. God dispenses His goodness not with an eyedropper, but with a fire hydrant; not with a teacup, but with the Mediterranean Sea.

You simply can’t contain it. So let it bubble over. Spill out. Pour forth. ‘Freely you have received; freely give’ (Matthew 10:8 NIV).

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

Forgive because you’ve been forgiven

‘Shouldn’t you have mercy…?’
Matthew 18:33 NLT

The UCB Word for Today - 05 FEB 2021

Jesus said: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.

He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold – along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned – to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, “Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.”

Then his master was filled with pity for him, and…forgave his debt. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.

He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant…begged for a little more time.

“Be patient with me, and I will pay it,” he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait.

He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full…the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?”

Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart’ (vv. 23-35 NLT).

If you are harbouring resentment and refusing to forgive someone, read this story again. It’s the word for you today!

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

Try to make restitution

‘If I have cheated anybody…I will pay back four times the amount.’
Luke 19:8 NIV

The UCB Word for Today - 06 FEB 2021

If you’ve defrauded someone, God expects you to make restitution. Don’t sweep it under the rug and try to save face.

Zacchaeus was a first-century con artist who worked for the Romans collecting taxes from his own people, the Jews. He fleeced everything that walked. The Bible says he was rich (v. 2 NKJV).

Filthy rich! But after spending a night with Jesus, he was radically changed. How do we know this?

Because he said: ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’

Jesus taught, ‘Produce fruit in keeping with repentance’ (Matthew 3:8 NIV). But sometimes it’s not possible to make amends to the person you’ve hurt.

What if they’re dead? What if you had an affair with someone else’s spouse?

Should you go back and tell their husband or wife about it so you can feel less guilty? No, you’d break their heart and maybe destroy their home.

So what should you do? Pray and receive God’s forgiveness (see 1 John 1:7-9).

And if you still feel troubled about it, talk to your pastor, or a Christian counsellor, or a mature friend who can handle it. James writes, ‘Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed’ (James 5:16 NIV).

The point is, you must be willing to make amends when it’s possible, and willing to incur the cost to make things right. If you do that, God will bless you and you can live with a clear conscience concerning it.

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

Protect your mind

‘Your minds may somehow be led astray.’
2 Corinthians 11:3 NIV

The UCB Word for Today - 07 FEB 2021

Paul writes, ‘I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray.’ Temptation always begins in your mind, and in order to protect it, you need to dwell on God’s Word.

It was Satan who planted the idea in Eve’s mind to eat the forbidden fruit. Eve wasn’t standing around trying to figure out how to disobey God.

So remember when you’re tempted, it’s not God speaking to you. The new nature you have from God doesn’t think that way.

The devil studies you in the same way an experienced coach studies the game videos of the opposing team. And because he does, he knows your weak spots and which temptations have the best chance of success.

How many times have you said, ‘I promised myself I would never do that again’? Yet you did it.

That’s because Satan knows what works on you. But you don’t have to go around feeling defenceless and discouraged.

The Bible says: ‘No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it’ (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV). Satan waits until your defences are down before he strikes, but God always provides ‘a way out’.

For every temptation you’ll ever face, God has an escape hatch. That means while you’ll never be exempt from temptation, you can be victorious over it.

And once Satan discovers his tactics no longer work, he goes looking elsewhere.

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

Make your life count for God

‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.’
2 Timothy 4:7 NIV

The UCB Word for Today - 08 FEB 2021

In Mount Hope Cemetery, Hiawatha, Kansas, you’ll find several large gravestones erected by John Milburn Davis. Davis began his working life as a lowly hired hand and managed to amass a considerable fortune.

In the process, he didn’t make many friends. Nor was he close to his wife’s family, since they thought she had married beneath herself.

Embittered, he vowed not to leave them a penny. When his wife died, Davis erected an elaborate statue depicting himself and her sitting at opposite ends of a love seat.

He was so pleased with it that he planned a second monument, showing his wife kneeling to place a wreath at his future graveside. Then he had a sculptor place a set of wings on her back.

One idea led to another, until he had spent a quarter-of-a-million dollars on tributes to his wife and himself. When people asked him to contribute to the local hospital, or a swimming pool for children, etc., the old miser would say, ‘What’s this town ever done for me?’

Davis spent his life’s fortune on statues and died at ninety-two as a lonely, grim-faced resident of the workhouse. And what happened to his monuments?

Each and every one of them is slowly sinking into the Kansas soil – victims of time, vandalism, and neglect; memorials to spite and self-centred living. There’s a certain poetic justice in the fact that within a few years they’ll all be gone.

Oh, by the way, only one person attended farmer Davis’s funeral – Horace England, the tombstone salesman! Don’t let that happen to you; make your life count for God!

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

You’re accepted, loved, and secure

‘He adopted you as his own.’
Romans 8:15 NLT

The UCB Word for Today - 09 FEB 2021

If you’re adopted, that means your parents chose you. They could have picked a different gender, colour, or ancestry.

But they selected you. You say, ‘But if they could have foreseen the rest of my life, they might have changed their minds.’

That’s the point exactly! God saw our entire lives from beginning to end, and He was still convinced ‘to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ’ (Ephesians 1:5 NLT).

We can now live ‘like God’s very own children, adopted into…his family, and calling to him, “Father, Father”…And since we are his children, we will share his treasures – for all God gives to his Son Jesus is now ours too’ (Romans 8:15, 17 TLB). God doesn’t accept you because of your pedigree.

And He doesn’t reject you because of your divorce, deficiencies, debt, or dumb choices. You’re His redeemed child.

You can call him ‘Abba’, which means ‘daddy’ or ‘papa’. You ‘may approach God with freedom and confidence’ (Ephesians 3:12 NIV).

And that’s so, on your bad days as well as your good ones. And it gets better.

Your adoption is horizontal as well as vertical. You’re now a member of His redeemed family.

Dividing walls of hostility are broken down, and community is created on the basis of a common father. Instant family worldwide!

If God loves you, you must be worth loving. If He wants to have you in His kingdom, then you must be worth having.

God’s grace invites you – no, requires you – to change your attitude about yourself and take sides with God against your feelings of rejection and unworthiness. You’re accepted, loved, and secure!

[Gracemohau]

TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

The Bible and your health (1)

‘A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body.’
Proverbs 14:30 NLT

The UCB Word for Today - 10 FEB 2021

In the last half century, doctors have come to understand and emphasise the correlation between mental and physical health. Yet the Bible talked about it over three thousand years ago when King Solomon gave us these four proverbs:

1) ‘A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones.’
2) ‘A cheerful look brings joy to the heart; good news makes for good health’ (Proverbs 15:30 NLT).
3) ‘Kind words are like honey – sweet to the soul and healthy for the body’ (Proverbs 16:24 NLT).
4) ‘A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength’ (Proverbs 17:22 NLT).

These Scriptures could be summed up like this: a faith-filled attitude (focusing on what’s good instead of what’s bad), laughter (the ability to rejoice), and spoken words of encouragement have a profound effect on your health (and the health of those around you). What’s the antidote for stress?

Serenity! What’s the remedy for fear? Faith! And where do serenity and faith come from? God!

David was in bad shape when he wrote, ‘I begged the Lord for mercy, saying, “What will you gain if I die, if I sink into the grave?”’ (Psalm 30:8-9 NLT). We don’t know whether he was stressed-out mentally, or if he was physically ill.

But God intervened, and later in the same psalm David wrote, ‘You have turned my mourning into…dancing. You have…clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent’ (vv. 11-12 NLT).

There’s no doubt about it – your thinking has a profound effect on your health!

[Gracemohau]

size=x-large]TODAY'S WORD FOR TODAY

The Bible and your health (2)[/size]

‘And there was none feeble among His tribes.’
Psalms 105:37 NKJV

The UCB Word for Today - 11 FEB 2021

Notice something Israel enjoyed in the wilderness: divine health. Think of the health issues you’d expect among two million people walking through endless desert with no doctor or hospital in sight.

Yet from the youngest to the oldest, ‘He…brought them out…and there was none feeble among His tribes.’ That’s because they lived on a diet provided by God Himself.

Their troubles began when they complained and wanted to go back to the food they ate as slaves in Egypt. There’s an important lesson here for those who live on fast foods that promote ailments like heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Imagine pouring five pounds of sugar into the fuel tank of your car and complaining that it won’t run properly. Now, when health problems run in your family, or economic circumstances force you to eat less than ideal food, God understands and you can go to Him with confidence, believing, ‘the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up’ (James 5:15 NKJV).

But when the choice is between exercising wisdom in order to have good health or exercising faith in order to be healed, your choice is clear. When Israel entered the Promised Land, God told them, ‘serve the Lord…and He will bless your bread and your water…take sickness away from the midst of you…[and] fulfil the number of your days’ (Exodus 23:25-26 NKJV).

Then He gave them dietary laws to live by that set them apart from the surrounding nations. Question: How many of us fail to ‘fulfil the number of [our] days’ and the assignment God gives us, because we refuse to exercise discipline when it comes to our diet?

Think about it!