Impressing God From the Inside Out

Impressing God from the Inside Out

We all know fashion is a big thing. How you look, how you present yourself, how you walk and how you talk is all designed to impress others.

What God is interested in is us impressing Him. We can take what He has given us—resources, good looks, talents, even our ability to relate to other people—and “kingdomize” it. In other words, He can stitch those things together and use them for eternal purposes.

Esther was a beautiful lady, she just hadn’t made a connection between her looks and God’s kingdom. God wanted to use the beauty He had given her to place her in a strategic role to protect God’s people for God’s glory and to be a tool for keeping God’s promises.

God’s not impressed with the external; He likes the internal to be beautiful. But, when the external can complement it and reflect the beauty on the inside, you then become useful to God, because He’s got a heart and soul He can use, and it’s in a person He can be proud of.

So, righteously impress others, but more importantly, impress God, because when God is impressed with you, you can be used for eternity and not just for a time. That will fade away. We get older, the clothes fade out, the money dries up, but a righteous man or woman who can be used by God, that pays eternal dividends
 
Dr, Tony Evans

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Impressing God From the Inside Out

We all know fashion is a big thing. How you look, how you present yourself, how you walk and how you talk is all designed to impress others.

What God is interested in is us impressing Him. We can take what He has given us—resources, good looks, talents, even our ability to relate to other people—and “kingdomize” it. In other words, He can stitch those things together and use them for eternal purposes.

Esther was a beautiful lady, she just hadn’t made a connection between her looks and God’s kingdom. God wanted to use the beauty He had given her to place her in a strategic role to protect God’s people for God’s glory and to be a tool for keeping God’s promises.

God’s not impressed with the external; He likes the internal to be beautiful. But, when the external can complement it and reflect the beauty on the inside, you then become useful to God, because He’s got a heart and soul He can use, and it’s in a person He can be proud of.

So, righteously impress others, but more importantly, impress God, because when God is impressed with you, you can be used for eternity and not just for a time. That will fade away. We get older, the clothes fade out, the money dries up, but a righteous man or woman who can be used by God, that pays eternal dividends.
Dr. Tony Evans

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God Said So

– God Said So –
What should we do when we face Satan’s lies, especially the lie that God’s Word cannot be true? In the desert, Jesus was faced with a legitimate need—the need to eat to sustain Himself. His need wasn’t wrong. Jesus had the power to do what was suggested, but to do it at the demand of Satan would have been satisfying Himself apart from God.
What proceeds out of God’s mouth must be our foundation for everything. It must be the foundation for counseling, for work, for our families and for our finances. God has given us His definitive Word, and His Word addresses everything that is relevant to us today. Christians who do not believe His Word and obey it do not see His power demonstrated today. God does not want us to pay homage to Him; He wants us to believe Him and act on faith. Faith believes God in the absence of empirical evidence.

In the Garden of Eden, Eve stumbled over this type of faith. She failed the test because she did not believe something she had never seen—death. When it’s difficult to believe God but we act in accordance with His words anyway, that’s faith. In short, faith is believing something is so, even when it is not so, that it might be so—simply because God said so.
Be encouraged,
Tony Evans


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Be Meek-Be Happy

Be Meek—Be Happy

Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.

–Matthew 5:5

In His characteristic way Jesus was saying something quite shocking and revolutionary to His listener with these words, “Happy are the meek.” He was saying something quite the opposite of our modern concept of the way to happiness. We say, “Happy are the clever, for they shall inherit the admiration of their friends”; “Happy are the aggressive, for they shall inherit a career”; “Happy are the rich, for they shall inherit a world of friends and a house full of modern gadgets.” Jesus did not say, “Be meek and you shall inherit the earth.” He, more than anyone else, knew that meekness was a gift of God, a result of rebirth. Jesus was not issuing a command in this Beatitude nor saying, “You ought to be meek, that is the way to live.” No! He was saying that if we want to find the secret of happiness, that if we want to enjoy living, then “meekness” is a basic key.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

May I truly reflect Your meekness in my life, Lord.


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Only Jesus

Only Jesus

God . . . is the one who invited you into this wonderful friendship with his Son, even Christ our Lord.

–1 Corinthians 1:9 (TLB)

The question remains, “How can God be just-that is, true to Himself in nature and true to Himself in holiness—and yet justify the sinner?” Because each man had to bear his own sins, all mankind was excluded from helping, since each was contaminated with the same disease. The only solution was for an innocent party to volunteer to die physically and spiritually as a substitution before God. This innocent party would have to take man’s judgment, penalty, and death. But where was such an individual? Certainly, there was none on earth. There was only one possibility. God’s own Son was the only personality in the universe who had the capacity to bear in His own body the sins of the world. Only God’s Son was infinite and thus able to die for all. Jesus is the only way to Heaven.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Lord Jesus, Lamb of God, in adoration I thank You for the love that made You willing to suffer and die on the cross for my sin.


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Dream Great Dreams

Dream Great Dreams

Be thou faithful unto death . . .

–Revelation 2:10

In our day much of the world believes little or nothing. People are broad but shallow. Agnosticism, anxiety, emptiness, meaninglessness, have gripped much of the world—and even the church. Our youth are desperately searching for a purpose and a meaning in their lives. They are searching for fulfillment which they are not finding in sex and drugs. By contrast, our Pilgrim forebears stand as shining examples of men who were narrow but deep, certain of what they believed, unswerving in their loyalty, and passionately dedicated to the God they trusted, and for whom they would willingly have died. I say to you, more than 350 years after the Pilgrim Fathers landed in the New World: Dream great dreams, embrace great principles, renew your hope, but above all, like them, believe in the Christ who alone can give total meaning and an ultimate goal to your life. “For in Him we live and move and have our being.”

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

May I always be faithful to my belief in You, Lord Jesus Christ. Where there is despair, use me to bring Your hope.


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Science and Faith

Science & Faith

He . . . has given you a full understanding of the truth.

–1 Corinthians 1:5 (TLB)

There is never any conflict between true science and our Christian faith. It is my own feeling that when all of the truth is known, it will be found that the Genesis story is a wonderfully accurate record of what took place when the world was created. This may be a telescoped record, giving only major points, but I believe it is scientifically accurate. To discard the Bible because we do not understand everything in it, or in the world, would be a foolish thing to do. Let me also suggest that teachers should confine themselves to those areas in which they are qualified. I have known unbelievers to attack the Christian faith through their teaching, even when they did not have the remotest idea of what true Christianity is. For instance, one does not send an art critic to write up a football game, or a sports writer to evaluate a painting. Ask God to give you the wisdom to keep things in their proper perspective, and—above all—faithfully read your Bible and pray every day. If you do, God will give you the faith and wisdom you need to meet any problem.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Father, each day as I read the Bible You reveal to me more of the reality of Your love and wisdom. I delight in Your Word!


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