WINSDAY WISDOM 227
I want to introduce this session with a few examples about being convinced or not convinced.
In college, I was convinced I could squeeze my way through a Humanities test by describing the portrait of the artistic sculpture as archaic because of its poorly developed eyes. The professor reminded me that it was a famous bust of the classical poet, Homer. My instructor wrote across my test book in large red ink letters, “Homer was blind!”
My mom, the detective English teacher, was convinced she had broken a high school drug ring. The subsequent investigation confirmed the students were sharing Tik Tak breath mints. Mom also told me not to sneak some of the fudge she made for my Uncle Curt or there would be no Christmas. To her regret, I was not convinced. Christmas came anyway. Maybe not for my uncle.
My best friend suggested a new eight-track player for my car would be awesome. With absolutely no regret, I was convinced until eight-track became replaced with cassette players which were terminated by CD players whose demise came about by Sirius radio, Alexis, and Apple Music cell phones. Does anyone want a classic Four Seasons or Neil Diamond eight-track?
I dated a girl who was convinced that the sun and the moon were the same thing. Dated. Past tense.
My college roommate told me to buy stock in Amazon and Microsoft. To my regret, I was not convinced.
I know a man who was convinced he would not die. That did not work out well for him.
And what about that person who is convinced he/she is always right about politics, religion, cooking, music, or sports? I wish there were a way to convince them to take a hike in the Sahara.
Definition of Convinced: to be completely certain about something; evidence for belief; to accept something as true.
We live and love based on things for which we are convinced to be true.
WHEN THINGS GO SOUTH AND SOUR IN YOUR LIFE, WHAT ARE YOU CONVINCED ABOUT? Are you convinced this world is against you? Are you convinced you got the short end of the stick? Are you convinced of anything?
THE #1 TEXTBOOK TELLS US ABOUT THE UNFAILING STEADFAST LOVE OF GOD ALWAYS WORKING FOR OUR GREATEST GOOD. THEN IT ASKS A HOPE-REVEALING QUESTION:
WHAT SHALL WE SAY IN RESPONSE TO THESE THINGS? (Romans 8:31).
I would be most interested to hear what you will say in light of your life’s story. As for me, I join with the apostle Paul in exclaiming, “For I am convinced that nothing can separate us (you and me) from the love of God. Absolutely nothing“ (Romans 8:38-39).
For I am convinced and absolutely persuaded not by arguments or explanations or calculations or education or indoctrination but convinced by God, by who God is, by what God says, by what God has done, by what God has promised.
Standing outside with binoculars turned toward the sky, my four-year-old grandson, Cooper, stared at the varied cloud formations and made a very important observation. “It sure looks like Jesus is up to something!”
As I look back over my life, I see that Jesus has been up to something every day. I stand in amazement as I see how all the dots in my life are connected by those big divine conjunctions: And God…But God.
What shall we say in response to these things?
For most of us, our days of childlike wonder and youthful joy have been scarred by suffering, chilled by circumstances, and distorted by spiritually impaired vision. My prayer is that this Winsday Wisdom might become your spiritual binoculars by which you gain a new perspective into the darkened clouds surrounding your life.
I pray you will see the reality of hope that Jesus is always up to something good in our lives. Sometimes we just do not see the goodness—or feel it.
Real faith struggles with doubts and questions. Like hope, it ebbs and flows through highs and lows, but the source of our faith and hope never wavers, never shakes, never weakens, and never lessens.
Our God is unchangeable, immoveable, unconquerable, and unquestionable in His wisdom, rightness, and goodness toward us. Despair is not the end of hope; emotional darkness is where hope shines the brightest.
What shall we say in response to these things?
There is hope. It is not the stuff of wishful thinking or fantasy dreams. Hope is grounded in truth. That truth is revealed in God’s Word. It is real and relevant and reliable. It is supremely sufficient for your suffering and circumstances. It is like looking through spiritual binoculars of hope.
Hope: the confident expectation of experiencing all the future goodness God has promised you…somehow…someway…sometime.
Because of the future dynamic of hope, we have to learn to fight for that confidence in God during the present sufferings. We all struggle with the external forces of changing circumstances and the internal pressure of emotional stress. Even though God has promised us future good beyond our imaginations, there are times it feels as if God has forgotten us and it looks as if God’s love is absent from the scene.
There comes a time in all our lives when we cannot see and do not feel any hope; we need an outside voice to speak to us of truthful things blurred by our tears and numbed by our despair. If we are honest, we have all been there.
What do you do when it seems as though God has failed to come through for you?
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1).
What shall we say in response to these things?
In those moments when the sights and sounds of hope become distant memories, I can declare with the utmost confidence and unclouded hope, “It sure looks like Jesus is up to something!” I see it with the binoculars of faith. I observe it on the horizon. I study it in the clouds of witnesses. I shout it like a four-year-old full of hope and confident expectation of future good.
I am convinced because I know God better than ever before. I know God is supreme and sovereign. I know God is first and foremost in all my circumstances. He is before all things and above all things. God is the ultimate reality and unsurpassed value of all things earthly and eternal. God is forever faithful and trustworthy.
I am convinced in God and by God as I see how He works things together in my life for good. God did not leave me alone in my journey. He never abandoned me or left me without help and hope for both my earthly and eternal benefit. I am absolutely persuaded God will get me safely home.
![](https://lovefirstlovemost.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/screenshot-2023-09-14-180210.jpg?w=738)
As I look back on the road I’ve traveled,
I see so many times He carried me through;
And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my life,
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
—“My Redeemer Is Faithful and True,” Stephen Curtis Chapman
I have experienced the good. I have tasted God’s kindness.
Therefore, I embrace all things in my life from adversity to prosperity because I better understand God’s purpose to use all those things to work together to make me live and love like Jesus. I am imperfect now with the hope of becoming the exact representation in the future.
I am convinced that God is for me. In His Son Jesus, He has given me all He is and all He has. Jesus stepped in as my substitute on the cross to be treated as if He had lived my sinful, self-centered life so I might never be condemned.
Others may try to judge me, but there is no condemnation from my God. His Word convinces me of that glorious thought.
No condemnation!
I want to cry! I want to shout! I want to join hands with you and dance! No condemnation!
I am convinced of my adoption by God in which I am fully and forever treated as if I had lived and loved like His perfect Son Jesus. Why? God considers me His loved child.
MY ACCEPTANCE IS UNDESERVED AND UNEARNED, BUT BY GRACE, IT IS UNCONDITIONAL AND UNENDING.
Do you think I am convinced of God’s unfailing love? I am convinced that nothing can tear me away from God’s embrace. Not life or death. Not space or time. Not anyone or anything. Not the supernatural, not even my own wrong decisions and actions.
No separation from God’s love! How can I keep from singing as I stand amazed in His presence?
When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see.
It will be my joy through the ages
To sing of His love for me
O how marvelous!
O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
—“I Stand Amazed in the Presence,” Charles H. Gabriel
For I am convinced that nothing can separate me from God’s love; therefore, I have hope. I am absolutely convinced I will experience all the goodness God has promised me in this life and the endless ages to come.
I will live and love in that hope, suffer in that hope, and die in that hope. And when I awake in the eternal reality of that hope, I will shout with joy and be lost in wonder at the wisdom of love as I run into the arms of the God who caused all things to work together for my good.
I continue to preach to myself with the same confidence spoken by Job in the midst of his greatest suffering, “Though God slays me, yet I will hope in Him.”
I am absolutely convinced that I will still experience all the future goodness God has promised me…somehow…someway…sometime.
I am convinced! Are you? Come on, sing with me!
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
STRENGTH FOR TODAY AND BRIGHT HOPE FOR TOMORROW
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed Thy hand hath provided:
GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS, LORD, UNTO ME!