Faith // How do we know God is real?

There's a guy in the Old Testament called Moses.

Now Moses was a pretty cool guy. He was born at a time where Pharaoh had decided there were too many Hebrew men, so wanted to kill the young Hebrew boys. Moses' mother hid him for as long as she could, but when he got too big she put him in a basket and sent him down the Nile (Crazy, right?)
He's then found by none other than Pharaoh's daughter(!!) and was raised as an Egyptian by a Hebrew woman who was his mother! When he's older, Moses decides to renounce being an Egyptian and suffer as the rest of the fellow Israelites do under the Egyptians hands. He gets married and it's all sorts of happy and fantastic.

Then when he's older, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush. He says

'And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt. ' (Exodus 3:9-10)

But Moses really doesn't want to do this. He starts by saying 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?' and God says 'I will be with you.' (Exod 3:11-12)

Then Moses says: Who am I supposed to say sent me? and God says: 'I am who I am.' (Exod 3:13-14)

Then Moses says: What if they don't believe me? So God gives him 3 signs to preform if the Israelites didn't believe him. (4:1-9)

Then Moses, who's starting to feel a bit desperate, says: But I've never been a good speaker. And God, who I imagine is a bit fed up by now, says: Moses I made your mouth. I can give you the words to speak. (4:10-11)

And then Moses gives up on excuses, gives up on trying to worm his way out of going to Egypt to set the Israelites free turns to God and says: Lord, please send someone else. At which God looses it and is like: Moses I'm doing the flipping work! I just want you to go to Egypt and throw your stick on the floor!! (4:13-17)

God gave Moses 3 signs AND the words to say to Pharaoh but he still felt like he wasn't enough.

But Moses trusted in God.

Trust is a difficult word. It's hard to trust someone you can't see - harder than trusting someone you can. But trust is a verb, its a doing word. Trusting God is an active decision. You've got to chose to do it. And you have to keep choosing to do it. And that's how we know God is real.

We trust He's there, because we trust in Him.

Encouragement // Encouraging yourself

Throughout this months theme of encouragement, we're going to look at encouraging others and encouraging other Christians, but what about encouraging yourself?

In Ephesians 6:10 Paul speaks about the armour of God.

'Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put of the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.'

But, what does this have to do with encouraging yourself?

Well, this armour is what we need to be solid in Christ and to be ready to face the world outside of Christianity.
There's the -

• Belt of truth 
• Breastplate of righteousness 
• Feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace 
• Shield of faith
• Helmet of salvation 
• Sword of the spirit 

So how do we get all this awesome sounding armour?! 

Read your Bible 

Pray 

Focus on others 

That's right! 3 steps. 

By reading our Bibles, we get to know God, his love and his life. We also begin to ingest scripture to take with us, giving us our sword of the spirit, helmet of salvation, shield of faith, belt of truth and our feet will be set with readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 

By praying, we build on our relationship with God and we learn to lean on him and not our own understanding. 

Focusing on Jesus and helping others (being selfless) fulfils the commandments that Jesus left with us; To love and help others and to make disciples of others. 

Being selfless also gives us the breastplate of righteousness. 

So that's it! Read your Bible, Pray and focus on others - the key to encouraging yourself closer to Jesus.