Unprecedented Favor

Unprecedented Favor

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

And [so that you can know and understand] what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe…

Ephesians 1:19, AMP.

TODAY’S WORD

Every one of us can say that, in our lives, God has been good to us. We’ve all seen God’s favor at work. He has protected us, promoted us and opened doors for us. That’s God’s favor. But I believe that in the coming days, God wants to show us unprecedented favor—that’s favor like we haven’t seen before.

In today’s verse, Paul said that in the “ages to come” we would see “the immeasurable, unlimited, surpassing greatness of God’s favor.” What’s interesting is that Paul wrote this passage ages ago. I believe that we are now living in the “ages to come” that Paul was talking about. I believe you and I are going to see this unprecedented favor!

The word “unprecedented” means “unmatched, unparalleled, for the first time.” In other words, you may have seen God’s favor in the past, but you need to get ready. You haven’t seen anything yet. What God has in your future is going to be bigger, better, greater—unprecedented! He is going to show you His goodness in ways you’ve never seen before. Keep standing, keep praying, keep putting Him first and watch His unprecedented favor come on every area of your life!

PRAYER FOR TODAY

Father God, thank You for this day and age I’m living in. I believe that You created me for such a time as this. By faith, I receive Your unprecedented favor as I serve You with my whole heart in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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The Bible Is Historically Accurate by Rick Warren “It is impossible for God to lie.” (Hebrews 6:18b NIV) You can trust the Bible because it’s doctrinally correct. You can trust the Bible because it’s theologically correct. You can trust the Bible because it’s accurate regarding morals and ethics. But you can also trust the Bible because it’s historically accurate. Why does that matter? The Bible tells us in Hebrews 6:18, “It is impossible for God to lie” (NIV). The only reason the universe works is because God is true all the time. If the Bible has one lie in it, it’s not a godly book. It wouldn't be from God, because God can’t lie. Psalm 33:4 says, “The Word of the Lord is right and true” (NLT). That means the Bible is right and true about salvation and history. How do we know the Bible is historically accurate? The same way you judge any other history: - The Bible comes from first-person accounts. An historian would look to see if the historical information is written down by someone who saw it, whether it’s secondhand or a fable written hundreds of years later. The Bible is primarily eyewitness accounts. Moses was there when the Red Sea split. Joshua was there when the walls of Jericho fell. The disciples of Jesus sat in the upper room and saw the resurrected Jesus appear. - Biblical history was recorded with extreme care. When the Old Testament copyists — the scribes — would copy scrolls from one to another, they’d do so like a photocopy machine! They had a long list of rules they used to make sure it was copied exactly. They had a specified number of columns throughout the Old Testament that would always be the same. Even the lengths of those columns had to be the same. They knew how many of each letter were in each book. For example, they might have known there were 1,653 occurrences of "as" in the book. If there were 1,654, they’d throw the scroll away and start over. - Archeology proves the Bible is true. Archeologists have been able to dig up the places mentioned in the Bible. For example, they’ve found the Pool of Siloam where the blind man was healed and portions of Herod’s temple. The Hittite Empire is a great example of how archeology has shown us that the Bible is historically accurate. For generations, historians had no record of the Hittites’ existence anywhere else. Yet in the early 1900s, an archeologist discovered 10,000 clay tablets in the Hittite capital. Now everyone knows that the Hittites once existed. Talk About It - Do you trust that the Bible is true? - What would you say to someone who says that God’s Word is not historically accurate?