{"id":1147,"date":"2021-12-16T08:39:05","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T22:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/?p=1147"},"modified":"2021-12-16T08:39:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T22:39:07","slug":"faith-is-more-valuable-than-the-finest-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/2021\/12\/16\/faith-is-more-valuable-than-the-finest-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith is More Valuable than the Finest Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bible Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Psalm 66<\/li><li>1 Peter 1<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Ps 66:3 Say to God, \u201cHow awesome are your deeds! Your enemies cringe before your mighty power.<\/li><li>Ps 66:9 Our lives are in his hands and he keeps our feet from stumbling.<\/li><li>1 Peter 1:6-9 Be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold, though your faith is far more precious than gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus is revealed to the whole world.<\/li><li>You love him, even though you have never seen him. though you do not see him now, you trust him, and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward of trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Devotional Thoughts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In chapter 4 of Hebrews we looked at the rest that is available to us as believers. Our \u201cwork\u201d as believers is learning to trust our Father. Trust comes as we know how much He loves us, and grow in the confidence that He truly does have our best in mind. 1 Peter 1:6 tells us, \u201cThere is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while.\u201d That kind of attitude only comes, when we truly know our Father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Psalm 66:3 the Psalmist says, \u201cHow awesome are your deeds! Your enemies cringe before your mighty power. Ps 66:9 Our lives are in his hands and he keeps our feet from stumbling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our lives are truly in God\u2019s hands. His power is absolute. What He does is ALWAYS motivated by love! (Ps 25:10)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peter continues in 1 Peter 1:7-9 \u201cThese trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold, though your faith is far more precious than gold.&nbsp;&nbsp;When your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus is revealed to the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the things we can be confident of in trials is that God is purifying our faith, making it stronger and more genuine. God thinks our faith is more valuable, more precious than the finest gold. I think we don\u2019t often see it that way, but it would make our faith more precious to us if we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Prayer Points:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Remember God\u2019s awesome deeds on your behalf, praise God for them.<\/li><li>Thank God that your life is in His hands.<\/li><li>Thank Him for the value He places on your faith<\/li><li>May we grow in seeing the process of refining our faith as of greater value than anything this world has to offer.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bible Reading Psalm 66 1 Peter 1 Ps 66:3 Say to God, \u201cHow awesome are your deeds! Your enemies cringe before your mighty power. Ps 66:9 Our lives are in his hands and he keeps our feet from stumbling. 1 Peter 1:6-9 Be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[130594],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-the-word-for-the-day","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-watters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}