UCB Word For Today

• Born to believe (2)

  Parenting doesn’t end when your child becomes a teenager. Teens are just more mobile, spend less time with you, and are more independent. Now they value and emulate peers who are as immature as they are. Even when you have laid moral and spiritual foundations in their early years, something will happen that leaves you asking, ‘What happened? Where did I go wrong?’ Adolescence happened! It’s the teenager’s brain; it’s wired that way. Their frontal lobes – the part of the brain linked to moral development, emotional reactivity, impulse control, and decision-making – aren’t fully developed yet. Their frontal lobes won’t finish growing before their twenties, and sometimes later. Meantime, what happened to all those Bible stories and your efforts to build godly beliefs into them? It’s all in there, temporarily lost in those budding lobes! They aren’t bad or ignorant, though they sometimes seem to act that way. They haven’t abandoned your teachings. The belief systems you helped them construct earlier are not erased – they have been transferred to a ‘holding file’ until their new sanity-restoring brain cells arrive. And they will! Your job is to avoid panic, pray, and allow God to work on them, love them unconditionally, and be their anchor. Stand firm, and live by your principles. Demonstrate empathy, but teach them how their decisions affect others. Help them learn self-control by letting them deal with their consequences! Be patient, supportive, and never give up on them. You have sown the seed of God’s Word into them, and ‘at just the right time [you] will reap a harvest of blessing if [you] don’t give up’ (Galatians 6:9 NLT)!© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

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• Born to believe (1)

  Training a child is both challenging and rewarding. By shaping their underlying belief system, you help their developing brain establish permanent neural pathways that will guide their moral and spiritual growth. Neuroscientists Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, authors of Born to Believe, tell us the most crucial years are from age seven to ten. That’s when a child has the greatest propensity to understand the concept of a God they can’t see, feel, or hear. What an ideal opportunity! Newberg and Waldman also suggest that our most effective tool for belief building at this stage is storytelling, not preaching or moralising. Stories that incorporate godly principles, moral behaviours, courage, faith, love, compassion, and forgiveness are welcomed, easily digested ingredients for building Christian character. Storytelling was how God instructed the Israelites to teach their children His ways and Word. Stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Daniel, Esther, Samson, Ruth, and David; of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection; of Jesus walking on the sea, raising the dead, and feeding the five thousand, stir the hearts, interest, and imagination of young children and impart enduring, life-changing principles! In fact, studies show that the belief systems of adults are powerfully influenced by stories they heard growing up. Implant stories that will become the underpinning for their character and the basis for a lifetime of faith. As a parent, carer, or teacher, it’s your job to encourage and stimulate their developing brain towards godly beliefs, decisions, and lifestyle!© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

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• How God sees you

  Once we understand that God’s love for us is based on what Christ did for us rather than what we do ourselves, the struggle is over. Now we can stop ‘performing’, and we can serve God because we know He loves us and that we don’t need to try to make Him love us. We no longer fear rejection by Him because of our mistakes. When we do something wrong, now all we do is repent, receive God’s forgiveness, and then refuse the condemnation that sin brings. Realising we are loved and accepted even though we’re imperfect is such a relief! Serving God out of desire rather than obligation is incredibly liberating! The moment you place your trust in Christ, God sees you as righteous from that point on. He doesn’t accept you because of your performance but because of your relationship with Him through Christ. And you need to decide to believe it and stand on it. A noted minister writes: ‘We become what we believe we are; therefore, as we become convinced that we are right with God, our behaviour will improve. We will do things right and with less effort. No matter what other people may have told you that you are not, God delights in telling you in His Word who you are in Him – loved, valuable, precious, talented, gifted, capable, powerful, wise, and redeemed. Take a moment and repeat those nine things aloud. Say, “I am loved, valuable, precious, talented, gifted, capable, powerful, wise, and redeemed.”’ That’s how God sees you, and it’s how you need to start seeing yourself.© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

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• Setting prayer traps

  When we read the verse, ‘Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,’ we tend to think it’s about capturing sinful thoughts and getting them out of our minds. And it is. But it’s also about capturing creative thoughts and keeping them in our minds. This Scripture also means stewarding every word, every thought, every impression, and every revelation inspired by God’s Spirit. A pastor writes: ‘The Aramaic word for “prayer” means “to set a trap”. We often think of prayer as nothing more than words spoken to God, but maybe it’s more than that. Prayer is also when God speaks to us through dreams and desires and promptings and impressions and ideas. Prayer is the mechanism whereby God ideas are conceived and captured. And it’s our capacity for prayer that will ultimately determine our creative potential. One way to set prayer traps is by keeping a prayer journal…Journalling is one of the most overlooked and under-appreciated spiritual disciplines in our multi-tasking culture.’ Your journal captures your journey. It shows you how far you have come and how far you still have to go. It reminds you of God’s grace when you stumbled and His faithfulness that brought you back to the right road after you had taken the wrong one. When you set a prayer trap, you capture each experience and wring the wisdom out of it to be better and stronger. You need to ‘write down the revelation’ (Habakkuk 2:2 NIV). Some of us do this digitally, and others with pen and paper. What matters is that you are recording what God is doing in your head, in your heart, and in your life.© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

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• How long will you live?

  Do you ever wonder how long you will live? The Bible says, ‘The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away’ (v. 10 NKJV). Why do some of us live longer than others? Paul answers, ‘Our knowledge is partial and incomplete’ (1 Corinthians 13:9 NLT). But here are three things you can be sure of: 1) You can lengthen your life by obeying God and shorten it by disobeying Him. Fighting illness and facing death, Hezekiah prayed, ‘Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes’ (2 Kings 20:3 NIV). God answered, ‘I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you…l will add fifteen years to your life’ (2 Kings 20:5-6 NIV). So, does God still heal today? Yes, His Word says, ‘Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil…and the Lord will make you well’ (James 5:14-15 NLT). 2) When their work on earth is done, the redeemed go to heaven. Paul describes heaven in two words: ‘far better’ (Philippians 1:23 KJV). And the architect, builder, and designer of your heavenly home is Jesus, the One who said, ‘I go to prepare a place for you’ (John 14:2 KJV). At home with Jesus – try to imagine what that will be like. 3) If you’re worried about death, claim God’s promise: ‘With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation’ (Psalm 91:16 NIV).© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

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