Today we are going to take a posture of peace by uprooting unbelief.
Posture is a short audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything.
Together we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
John chapter 16 verse 33. I know that it is a scripture I've mentioned many times before
in past episodes. This is a truth that I planted deep, deep in my heart a few years ago during one
of the hardest seasons of my life. And at that time it was not a truth that I trusted. But I
believe that in his goodness and in his faithfulness, Holy Spirit led me to that particular
truth during that particularly hard time of my life, not to taunt me with it, not to chastise
me with it, but so that he could lead me in it and teach me to trust it. So today I'm reading
that scripture, John 16, 33, and I'm reading it from the Passion Translation today. Jesus said,
and everything I've taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you
and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world,
you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous for I have conquered the world.
I know that some of you today are experiencing those sorrows, that trouble that Jesus mentioned
here. And because of it, you may be wrestling with doubt, unbelief, maybe fear. And you may
be tempted to believe that the trouble and the sorrow you're facing right now is proof that God
doesn't love you or that he doesn't care for you. And that kind of belief, it may be very obvious
to you. Like you might be like, yeah, that's totally what I'm struggling with right now. Like
I don't believe God cares about me. Or for some of you, it may be more subtle. It may be buried
deep under feelings of anxiety or anger or disappointment or despair, things that you feel
very deeply, but you don't know how to articulate. And I was more of the latter. I was feeling all
the feels in that hard, hard season, not knowing, really not being willing to admit that I didn't
believe God cared about me. Because what good Christian in her right mind wants to admit that
she doesn't believe God is telling the truth about his unfailing love, that she doesn't believe he is
who he says he is. I mean, I didn't want to admit that, but the reality was the very root of all of
my angst in that hard season was unbelief and specifically God does not care. And it's so
important to acknowledge and uproot unbelief, not bury it, not live unaware of it, not ignore it,
because unbelief always disempowers us. Unbelief keeps us stuck. It keeps us in the dark and it
keeps us blinded to the truth. I mean, look, look all throughout scripture and see what unbelief
did to people. It kept an entire generation out of the promised land. It kept nations in bondage.
It forfeited birthrights and inheritances. It blinded people to the Messiah, Jesus Christ,
even though he stood right in front of them, fulfilling every single prophecy and performing
miracles that no human could ever pull off. Unbelief is a big deal. So we have to, we have
to expose it. We have to uproot it from our hearts and minds and we have to guard against
unbelief. So I want to ask you a question and take your time answering it. Think about this today
because I want you to answer it honestly. Do you believe God cares about you?
I'm not asking if you know it. Like I knew what the Bible said. I'm asking
you believe it. Do you believe God cares about you? Do you believe that God will
care for you? Do you believe that he loves you? I want to share this truth
today not to pep you up but to set you free.
Jesus said, everything I've taught you is so that the peace which is in me will
be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. He said in
this unbelieving world you will experience troubles and sorrows but you
must be courageous. He said, I have conquered the world and you might be
tempted to say in your own hurt and pain right now, well that proves nothing and
I'm here to tell you friend, it proves everything. God owed us nothing and yet
he gave us everything. He gave us himself. He gave us his victory. Sorrows
and troubles are not proof that God does not care. They're just proof that we live
in an imperfect world and they prove our deep longing for perfection and that's a
longing only a perfect God can satisfy and he knew it and he decided to come
and give us himself. Troubles and sorrows are the perfect proving ground for God's
care and they are the perfect proving ground for our trust in God's care
because it's here and the troubles and sorrows where we can practice our peace
where we can practice our confidence in him where we can practice our joy our
courage it's here in the midst of troubles and sorrows where we can be
empowered and emboldened and equipped by experiencing Jesus's perfect victory
over this imperfect world. The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26 3 in
Hebrew it is shalom shalom meaning complete wholeness nothing missing
nothing broken this is who you are in Jesus because of Jesus you are a living
testimony of Jesus's ultimate win with every step you take today you're putting
Jesus's victory on display and Satan's defeat on replay.