Life On Earth Is A Trust

Transcription

1 Life On Earth Is A Trust Page 1 of 4 WEEK 1 DEVOTIONALS Life On Earth Is A Trust BY RICK WARREN MAY 21, 2014 Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. Matthew 25:21 (NIV) We're focusing on the next ten years - a Decade of Destiny - "Jesus often referred to so that we will be good stewards of whatever God gives us. life as a trust and told This concept of stewardship begins with the recognition that many stories to illustrate God is the owner of everything and everyone on earth. The our responsibility toward Bible says, "The world and all that is in it belong to the Lord; God. " the earth and all who live on it are his." (Psalm 24:1 TEV) We never really own anything during our brief stay on earth. God just loans it to us while we're here. It was God's property before you arrived, and God will loan it to someone else after you die. You just get to enjoy it for a while. The first job God gave humans was to manage and take care of God's "stuff" on earth. This role has never been rescinded. It is a part of our purpose today. Everything we enjoy is to be treated as a trust that God has placed in our hands. Years ago, a couple let my wife and me use their beautiful, beach-front home in Hawaii for a vacation. It was an experience we could never have afforded, and we enjoyed it immensely. We were told, "Use it just like it's yours," so we did! We swam in the pool, ate the food in the refrigerator, used the bath towels and dishes, and even jumped on the beds in fun! 5/14/2016

2 Life On Earth Is A Trust Page 2 of 4 5/14/2016 But we knew all along that it wasn't really ours, so we took special care of everything. We enjoyed the benefits of using the home without owning it. Jesus often referred to life as a trust and told many stories to illustrate our responsibility toward God. In the story of the talents, a businessman entrusts his wealth to the care of his servants while he's away. When he returns, he evaluates each servant's responsibility and rewards them accordingly. The owner says, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness." (Matthew 25:21 NIV) At the end of your life on earth you will be evaluated and rewarded according to how well you handled what God entrusted to you. That means everything you do, even simple daily chores, has eternal implications. If you treat everything as a trust, God promises three rewards in eternity. First, you will be given God's affirmation: He will say, "Good job! Well done!" Next, you will receive a promotion and be given greater responsibility in eternity: "I will put you in charge of many things." Then you will be honored with a celebration: "Come and share your Master's happiness." Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it. 0 Comments Sort by Oldest Add a comment... Facebook Comments Plugin

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4 Your Life Is Shaped by Your Thoughts Page 1 of 7 Your Life Is Shaped by Your Thoughts BY RICK WARREN JUNE 18, Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts. (Proverbs 4:23 TEV) God is far more interested in changing your mind than changing your circumstances. We want God to take away all of the problems, pain, sorrow, suffering, sickness, and sadness. But God wants to work on you first, because transformation won t happen in your life until you renew your mind, until your thoughts begin to change. Why is it so important that you learn how to manage your mind? Let me give you three reasons. Manage your mind, because your thoughts control your life. Proverbs 4:23 says, Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts (TEV). The power of your thoughts has tremendous ability to shape your life for good or for bad. For example, maybe you accept the thought someone told you when you were growing up, You re worthless. You don t matter. If you accepted that thought, even though it was wrong, it shaped your life. Manage your mind, because the mind is the battleground for sin. All temptation happens in the mind. Paul says in Romans 7:22-23, I love to do God s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin (TLB).

5 Your Life Is Shaped by Your Thoughts Page 2 of 7 One of the reasons why you get mentally fatigued is because there s a battle in your brain 24 hours a day. It s debilitating because it s intense, and it s intense because your mind is your greatest asset. Satan wants your greatest asset! Manage your mind, because it s the key to peace and happiness. An unmanaged mind leads to tension. A managed mind leads to tranquility. An unmanaged mind leads to conflict. A managed mind leads to confidence. An unmanaged mind leads to stress. When you don t try to control your mind and the way you direct your thoughts, you will have an enormous amount of stress in your life. But a managed mind leads to strength and security and serenity. Letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace (Romans 8:6 NLT, second edition). Talk It Over What do you fill your mind with that pleases God? What do you fill your mind with that disappoints God? How do you practice managing your mind? What role does Scripture play in managing your mind? Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

6 Want To Know God s Promises? Read the Bible! Page 1 of 4 Want To Know God s Promises? Read the Bible! BY RICK WARREN MAY 21, 2014 I commit you to God and to the Word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:32 NIV) You have an inheritance coming to you. If you read God s Word, the Bible promises one for you. The Bible says in Acts 20:32, I commit you to God and to the Word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. An inheritance is what you get for being part of a family that s rightfully yours. Pretend your father was Warren Buffet, and he dies. If you never took the time to read the will, you d be foolish. You wouldn t get what was rightfully due to you. You wouldn t benefit from what belongs to you as a child of Warren Buffet. When you become a follower of Jesus, you re not just a believer you re a belonger. You become a part of God s family. Family privileges come along with that decision. You have a spiritual inheritance. But if you walked through your entire life and you didn t know what benefits were available to you as a child of God, that would be sad and foolish. God wants you to grow and know what s available to you from him. You need to read the Bible to do that.

7 Want To Know God s Promises? Read the Bible! Page 2 of 4 The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. The purpose of the Bible is to help you live out the purpose God has for your life; it s God s inheritance that s due to you. God wants you to be thoroughly equipped for what you ve been made to do. To do that, he does four things through Scripture: - He teaches you. God shows you the path on which you should walk. - He rebukes you. God shows you when you re off the path. - He corrects you. God shows us how you can get back on the path. - He trains you. God shows you how you can stay on the path. That s how God s Word helps you grow and get that great inheritance God has prepared for you. Talk About It - How would your life change if it reflected the truth that you have an inheritance from the King of Kings? - What benefits from your inheritance have you not yet accepted? - Is the Bible a useful tool for you each day? Are you taking full advantage of its instruction? Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church ( in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America's largest and most influential churches. Rick is author of the New York Times bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life ( His book, "The Purpose Driven Church (

8 6 Things You Need To Fight The Devil: (#6) God s Word Page 1 of 6 6 Things You Need To Fight The Devil: (#6) God s Word BY RICK WARREN MAY 21, And accept salvation as a helmet, and the word of God as the sword which the Spirit gives you. (Ephesians 6:17 TEV) In Ephesians, the apostle Paul says the sixth thing necessary in spiritual warfare is to use the Word of God as a sword. So, the full armor of God includes integrity, purity, serenity, certainty, sanity and maturity Most people don t know how to use the Word of God against the devil even people who ve been in church for years and have heard the Word that whole time. But hearing the Word isn t the same as using the Word. Being able to use God s Word against Satan is one of the most important marks of spiritual maturity. The Bible says, You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food (Hebrews 5:12 NLT). It s not hearing, reading, or even learning the Word of God that makes a believer mature. According to Hebrews 5:12, a mature believer is the person who puts the Word into practice.

9 6 Things You Need To Fight The Devil: (#6) God s Word Page 2 of 6 Paul calls the Bible the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 6. The sword is an offensive weapon that soldiers used to expand their territory and take something over. Putting the Bible into practice is how you invade Satan s territory. Satan isn t afraid of your words, but he is afraid of God s Word! The Bible doesn t become your sword until you memorize it, though. Why? You rarely have your Bible with you when you need it. If you re looking at a $300 dress and trying to decide whether to go into debt to buy it, you need to have stored in your heart what God s Word says about buying what you can t afford. Jesus did this. When Satan tempted Jesus three times in the wilderness, Jesus always responded by quoting the Bible. Jesus didn t have to pull out his pocket Old Testament to respond to Satan. He had already hidden the Word in His heart. That s how you defeat the devil, too. I have been memorizing Scripture since I was 17 years old. I ve memorized thousands of verses since then. Those verses give me power most people don't have. Often, someone will ask me a question for which I don t have an answer. When that happens, I ask God, What do you want me to say to this person? The Holy Spirit then goes back through all the verses I ve learned and brings the right verse to my mind. Start with key verses in areas where you re often tempted like sex, impatience, or speaking without thinking. Then, when you re tempted, you ll be able to use God s Word against Satan. 40 Days in the Word ( This January, I will be delivering a new church wide campaign/small group study at Saddleback Church called 40 Days in the Word. My hope and prayer is that churches and individuals across the country will unite in a common desire to Learn the Word, Love the Word, and Live the Word of God like never before. This is our most significant campaign since 40 Days of Purpose, when more than 30,000 churches

10 6 Things You Need To Fight The Devil: (#6) God s Word Page 3 of 6 united nationwide. I encourage every church, pastor, or individual reading this to pray about participating. You can find more information about this at ( For church pastors or leaders, the campaign preview kits can be found here ( P8286.aspx), or if you have a small group, you can get the teaching DVD and Workbooks here ( CategoryId=1122). James 1:22 says, Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. I hope you come along with us as we seek to live the Word of God! Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church ( in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America's largest and bestknown churches. Rick is author of the New York Times Best Seller The Purpose Driven Life ( and also The Purpose Driven Church ( sku=pb210000), which was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th century. He is also founder of Pastors.com ( a global Internet community for ministers. Copyright 2011 Rick Warren. Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

11 Stand Firm On God s Truth, Not Another's Opinion Page 1 of 4 Stand Firm On God s Truth, Not Another's Opinion BY RICK WARREN MAY 21, 2014 It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you. (Proverbs 29:25a GN) It s difficult to take a stand for God s truth when you are overly concerned with what people think about you. When we worry about what other people think, we let them control us. We waste a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what other people want us to be. Then, we waste a lot of time and energy trying to become like that rather than just being what God made us to be. Worrying about what other people think is dangerous because we re more likely to cave in to criticism. It means we don't always do the right thing; instead, we do the thing that everybody wants us to do. And what everybody wants to do is often the opposite of what God s truth compels you to do. We re also in danger of missing God's best. We're so worried about what other people want us to do that we can't stop to think about what God wants us to do. Fact #1: You cannot please everybody. Even God can't please everybody. One person prays for it to rain; another prays for it to be sunny. In the Super Bowl, both teams are praying that they will win. Who is God going to answer? God can't please everybody. Only a fool would try to do what even God can't do. You can't please everybody. Fact #2: It's not necessary to please everybody. There is a myth that says you must be loved and approved by everybody in order to be happy. That's just not true. You don't have to please everybody in order to be happy in life.

12 Stand Firm On God s Truth, Not Another's Opinion Page 2 of 4 Fact #3: Rejection will not ruin your life. It hurts, sure. It's not fun. It's uncomfortable. But rejection will not ruin your life unless you let it. Quit trying to please everybody! Remember that nobody can make you feel inferior unless you give him or her permission. The Apostle Paul says, If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31 TEV) This means we can think like this: God likes me, and I like me; if you don't like me, then you have a problem. If God likes me, who cares that everybody doesn't approve of everything I do? Remember, nothing you ever do will make God love you less. Nothing you ever do will make God love you more. He loves you completely right now. That kind of confidence boost should give you the courage you need to take a stand. Talk About It Who have you been trying to please? How has your concern with pleasing this person kept you from standing up for what you know is true? Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church ( in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America's largest and most influential churches. Rick is author of the New York Times bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life ( His book, "The Purpose Driven Church ( sku=pb210000)," was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th century. He is also the founder of Pastors.com ( a global Internet community for pastors. This devotional 2012 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

13 When God Gives Direction, Mature Believers Will Confirm Page 1 of 5 7/21/2015 When God Gives Direction, Mature Believers Will Confirm BY RICK WARREN MARCH 7, 2015 [God s] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known. (Ephesians 3:10 NIV) When you think you ve heard God tell you something, you might ask yourself, How do I know if this impression is really from God? If you want to know if your impression is from God, you need to ask, Does my church family confirm it? You need the wisdom and advice of godly people in your life to help you stay on track. God never meant for you to go through life on your own. That s why he created the church! We need each other. Nobody has all the answers. Nobody has it all together. Nobody knows the right decision every time. That s why we need a church family. We need spiritually mature friends to bounce ideas off of and get feedback from. Ephesians 3:10 says, [God s] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known (NIV). If God has genuinely spoken to you, then other mature believers will confirm it. If they don t confirm it, you have every reason to doubt whether it s really from God.

14 When God Gives Direction, Mature Believers Will Confirm Page 2 of 5 7/21/2015 If you feel resistant to even sharing the impression, where do you think that resistance is coming from? It s coming from the devil. It means it s not from God, because God would not have a problem with you sharing an idea from him. He wants us to learn from each other, to share with each other, to get the wise counsel of each other. I ve been a pastor for many, many years. I ve talked to thousands of people. I have concluded that the two biggest reasons people mess up in life are that one, they have no spiritually mature friends, and two, they don t listen to them even if they do have them. The Bible says in Proverbs 11:9, The wisdom of the righteous can save you (GNT). It doesn t say the wisdom of your best friends. It says the wisdom of the righteous in other words, people who have been walking with God longer than you. They re not perfect, but they are making an effort to grow, and they re sincere. What do they save you? They save you time, money, energy, and they save you from mistakes, failure, and danger. That s why you need other, mature believers to help you know if an impression is from God. PLAY today s audio teaching from Pastor Rick >> ( Talk It Over Who are the people in your life who you can share your impressions with and who will give you biblical counsel? What keeps you from sharing with other believers about your spiritual questions and your relationship with God? Would other believers say they can freely share their ideas and impressions with you? Why or why not? Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.