Mostrando resultados por autor "Rick Noyes" en Todas las categorías

The unsettling events of 2020 are mind boggling and can easily cause a person to wonder just what happened. As if the world was not already confusing and complicated enough, having the events of the past year crashing into our reality has left many people trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t make sense. Are you trying to figure out what is the point of it all? Finding meaning in life seems to be impossible, but there is nothing new under the sun and Solomon has some words of hope for us to consider. The book of Ecclesiastes is a must for anyone asking, why am I here? What is the ...

Do you know why we see so little change in our world today? Do you know why the best of solutions are doomed to fail? Do you wonder why everything seems to be coming apart at the seams at every level of society? In the orchestration of God’s sovereignty, He is tearing it all down, because most people even those who profess Jesus as Lord, are chasing after their own plans and purpose, not that of God who calls us. That is why our personal lives are disasters, our nation is a train wreck, and the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. It is all orchestrated by God hoping to awaken us to ...

I think there is a resistance within me when it comes to giving God my all, even when I know that is the right thing to do. Since the error of my way is comfortable and familiar, even when God’s blessing is withheld, I want to pretend it is for reasons other than me. In order to break this same type of resistance by the nation Israel, God uses two men to speak to the nation on His behalf. They were the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. I wonder if these two prophets can’t light our own path back to where God wants us to be in life, to understand what He wants us to do here and now. If you ...

The church is called to live for the will of God, but in reality I think that very few people know God’s will, let alone live for it. Do you want to own God’s will as your own? Then do something about it. Become a faithful student of God’s Word, in the classroom of the Spirit of God by joining with me in this study of the book of Ezra and His will can become your own.

God used prophets to reach His people throughout history. I hope this study has you wondering as do I, if we could not use a few more prophets today to call the people of God back from where they are presently. It you find yourself longing for a change from the reality that surrounds us today and the same old status quo, then perhaps you have the heart of a prophet.

Do you ever feel like you are failing at the most important things in life? Do you long for more in the church today? What can one individual do to really make a difference in what seems to be lacking in the life of the church today? What is it that sets our purpose and plan? What can make the depth of our relationships to be more satisfying, then the friendly we are left with today? I think all of those questions and more can be answered when we begin to look at our own devotion to the God who calls us. This little book explores what is a single-minded devotion and why it is important for ...

Have you ever found yourself in the wrong because you totally missed the point? It could have been a school assignment, a botched task given by your employer, feeling the cold shoulder of relationship because you missed the point of something said, or even the punchline of a joke that everyone else understood. Regrettably, when we face those kinds of situations, most people revert to a self-defense mechanism that questions our guilt or failure. Sometimes that is displayed by pushing off our failing to others. I didn’t have enough time. The instructions were unclear. I was not given ...

Have you ever felt you were inadequate? Perhaps your family excels where you do not and you feel their expectations for you are too high, because you believe they have set the bar far above your abilities. It could be, your instructors in your educational endeavors have moved too quickly for you to demonstrate competency and because you are behind your peers, you feel the weight of inadequacy.Maybe you, like me, lack the eye-hand coordination to do anything but flounder in sports. I also lack the skill to draw a straight line, to sing on tune, to solve quadratic equations, to know when a ...

Do you ever wonder what you will be remembered for when you are gone? Will you leave any mark on the future that says, I was here, and that I mattered? I guess because I have rounded third base and am heading for home plate at age 71, those questions have more relevance for me than maybe they do for you. However, one day they will for you as well. Therefore, I want you to know, leaving a lasting legacy should begin today while you are still here, because none of us has a guarantee on tomorrow.

Have you ever felt stuck in place emotionally, spiritually, or in your circumstances? You cannot move forward and going back is impossible. You are not even sure you want to, because this darkness that has captured your soul seems like an old friend. If you have ever been in that place, you are not alone and this study is dedicated to you. It is written so that you might gain the strength and courage to go on to your best life, since there is no going back.

Imagine for a moment, being told that everything you ever thought you knew about God was wrong. All of what you thought you knew was incomplete, misinformed, and incorrect. Admitting that would not only mean that your view about God was wrong, but your view of yourself and your approach to God was misguided at best and deceived at worst. The response to what you suddenly understood would mean all of life would be a new paradigm. In turn, those protecting the status quo and orthodoxy of the incomplete view would attack those embracing this new reality as outcasts, troublemakers and even ...

When we need the big picture, Luke’s gospel is a good place to start, since he challenges our expectations, concepts, and world view. Even though Luke chronicles the ministry of Messiah to Israel, his focus is to draw out the teaching of the Messiah that has application for the church as the kingdom of God. Therefore, it has much to teach concerning life in the kingdom of the Son, to which the Father transferred us when we were called by God. I think what Luke wanted his gospel to do, was to direct the gentile believers in the Jewish Messiah, to understand the importance of His teaching ...

There are five post-exile books that are interwoven with Nehemiah’s narrative that help give us a clearer picture of this part of Israel’s history. They are Haggai, Zechariah, Esther, Ezra and Malachi. Nehemiah seems to be written like a diary of what happened in regard to the work that God had laid on his heart and therefore it is a very personal account. The theme of this study is going to be when we work together, but it is much more. The book of Nehemiah is meant to cause an unrest within us because we settle for what is, rather than what could be. It is meant to shame us for ...

In many ways, the story of Job is the story of every person, because no matter who we are, at some time in life, we all suffer. The only thing that separates us is the degree of our suffering. In discussing the subject of suffering with a friend of mine, he said that for most people life’s flow is a constant series of struggles, punctuated by times of peace. I believe everyone, everywhere, at differing times of life, comes face-to-face with their own suffering. If you are not suffering now, you certainly will at some point in life, wouldn’t you like to be prepared? If your answer is yes...

Have you ever had an epiphany? I don’t mean a moment of clarity or a good idea, but have you ever had a God-given insight into something you did not know before? That is what this book is about, when God opened my eyes to see and mind to understand. We never know, what we do not know, when we do not know it. But what if we could? Would you be interested? Then this book is for you.

Do you think the American church today is flourishing or is something else happening? Before you answer that question, I suggest that you do as I did and ask the people you know in and out of the church their assessment of the church today. If you do, I think you might find your view of reality challenged as did I. This little book is meant to challenge your thinking and awaken you to the problems that go unseen or unaddressed today in Christian circles. I think you will find it thought provoking at the least.

Are you like me in finding it difficult to love people the way God does? Why do you think that is more of chore than a delight? Could it be that today we have missed what it means to love like God? Would you like to how to do just that? If so, then this book might be just the thing for you to discover just why if is so important that we learn to love like God.

If like me, you think our world and where we are going is the wrong direction, as we gullibly follow others only to find nothing makes sense, then maybe this book is for you. If you are not sure ask yourself this: Are you tired of all the promised changes, of all the band-aids solutions for the brokenness within you and in the world, of all the rhetoric that is just the same old lies packaged in a new way. Do you long for hope and real change? Do you ever wonder how just one person could possibly make a difference when you cannot even make a difference in your own life?

In some ways I wished the Spirit of God had never awakened me to this reality I see, because I was quite comfortable with the familiar of the institutional church routine, even if that was preventing me from making much headway spiritually. The adage that ignorance is bliss was where I was at, but the God who called me was not going to let me linger in that bliss of ignorance any longer and sorry to say He had to disrupt the world with a pandemic to move me from where I was entrenched to eyes wide open.

Have you ever known the desire to escape? Maybe you wanted to escape a difficult relationship, a dead-end job, a location that you found sucking the life out you, or perhaps your need to escape was simply to be doing something more fulfilling. If any of that resonates with you, then you will appreciate my story for escape from the institutional church. I thought is was me that broken, when all along it was the zoo that we call the church that left me out of sync with the Lord of the church and longing for more.