Month: September 2014

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Being Awestruck by God

This week I’ve had the privilege of taking morning and evening walks on the beach. I can’t tell you how many times during my lifetime I have taken a walk on the beach, but every time I take a stroll I have been in awe of God’s creation. I am just as awe struck today as I was as a child.

To think that God spoke all of this into existence boggles my mind. He causes the tides to work together with rotation of the earth and with the movement of the sun and moon. The ocean never runs dry and it is filled with all sorts of living creatures. God doesn’t need the fish and game commission to stock the ocean; He abundantly supplies the ocean with all sorts of fish, and it is enough to feed the nations.

If God in His infinite wisdom can manage the oceans of the world, how much more can He guide and direct our life. If He cares so meticulously for the marine life in the depths of the sea, how much more can He care, manage and direct our lives?

To the committed follower of Christ, life is not about being religious and following a set of strict rules. It is about trusting God for every moment of our life. It’s about seeing God in everything. It’s seeing Him in the beauty and wonder of nature, it’s observing Him at work in the events of our life, and in the lives of our loved ones. It’s realizing that open doors are not just happenstance but it’s God at work leading us to the next step in our chance to be light and salt to our world.

Even during those times when we feel that God isn’t hearing our prayers, He is in our midst, leading us to new depths of fellowship and understanding of who He is. Just when we think we really know God, He appears with a new experience to teach us something about His character and nature that leaves us awe struck. Then that new knowledge enables us to be a “sweet aroma” to others.

Paul gives us a glimpse of this principle in 2 Corinthians 2: 3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”(NAS)

The Bottom Line
To a believer, life is deeper than “making lemonade out of life’s lemons.” It’s about discovering the depths of Jesus Christ in the midst of our problems. God’s desire for us is to be able to look through the challenges of life, put them aside for a moment, and become awestruck by His love for you.

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One of God’s Gifts

The Lord is the source of all good things. He is not only the sustainer of life but He is also the giver of life. He gives us our physical life, but He also gives us a quality of life. This quality of life is directly related to our ability to choose. One of God’s gifts is “the ability to make our own choices.”

God gives his children a instinctive ability, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to make proper choices. He sovereignly guides our life, but at the same time, He also fills our life with choices. For example, we can choose leisure over labor, entertainment over education, doubt over truth and fear over confidence.

Or we can choose to believe that “we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us” (Phil. 4:13). We have within us the power of the risen Christ. Can you think of a power greater than the power to raise the dead?

Our failures do not define us. Our failures give us the opportunity to draw on that supernatural source of life and strength. That enables us to choose just the opposite, we now choose labor over leisure, education over entertainment, truth over doubt and confidence over fear.

The majority of mistakes I have made in my life were based on wrong choices. Even when things fell apart, due to no fault of my own, the responsibility of recovery was up to me, based on my choices. I could have chosen to live as a victim or I could choose to set my mind in a new direction.

God’s gift of allowing us to make choices and to “choose life” is a magnificent gift. He doesn’t just birth us into his family and then send us out into the world to be devoured by the wolves. He sends us out equipped with the mind of Christ which helps us make good decisions (1 Cor. 2:16). He then fills us with the Holy Spirit who gives us discernment that will eventually lead us to truth (John 16:7-15).

The Bottom Line

As followers of Christ, we have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices – starting today. God has endowed us with the power and ability to choose life. It starts with using the gift that God has given us, the gift of choice. Change your thinking and you will change your life. If you don’t like how things are, change it. You’re not a rock or a robot, you are a child of God who has the gift to choose. It all begins with the power of choice. Begin today to change the way you think and make choices that reflects the real you.

“The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves.” William Shakespeare

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The Believer and Conflict

After his resurrection Jesus appeared to his disciples several times. One of the encounters occurred on a beach, after they had been fishing all night. They were close to shore and noticed Jesus on the beach; he was cooking breakfast for them.

After they had finished eating Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Most of us are familiar with this discourse between Jesus and Peter. Peter responded all three times that he truly loved Jesus. Jesus told Peter to “tend my lambs, take care of my sheep, and feed my sheep.” (John 21)

There is plenty to learn from the three questions Jesus ask, but I think the deeper and more profound words of Jesus is what He said to Peter next.

“I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.” Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. (John 21:18-19 NLT)

Jesus’ point to Peter is that his life from this point forward was going to be difficult. Jesus is telling Peter that there will come a time that he will be taken where he doesn’t want to go, and he will be treated like he doesn’t want to be treated, and then he will die.

The deeper message behind this foretelling of Peter’s future is not just Jesus telling Peter how he is going to die. The deeper message is Jesus telling Peter how is going to live. In a way, Jesus was telling him that life is not all about “Peter”. His life now is about a bigger story. Peter’s life is now about his mission, his mission of bringing the gospel to the nations. With that task comes a life of “being led about where you don’t want to go.”

Life is not about being the main player, but it’s about being a part of the big picture. In other words, life is not about creating a plan and knowing what is going to happen every season of your life. Life is about conflict, difficult days, disappointment and failure. But God has a purpose in all of that. He wants to lead us to the point of “If you want to keep your life you must be willing to lose it.”

God wants us to get to the point of surrendering every aspect of our life to Him, so we can give our life away. That’s where radical Christianity comes in. When we let go of our life, we will find it.

That’s how a highly trained Physician can leave a financially lucrative career and become a missionary doctor in the bush of a 3rd world country. It’s how a professional school teacher can quit her secure job with a good salary and benefits and go teach at risk, inner city children in the ghetto of a major city.

The issue is not “are you willing to be a missionary.” The issue is are you willing to lay down your life, your dreams and your plans at Jesus’ feet and give him a blank pad, and have him write your story as He sees fit.

The Bottom Line
All good stories and movies have an unpredictable and unseen surprise ending. It’s that conflict and tension that etches the story in your mind. Our life is one big story being written by the God. That means we are going to be led into situations that are uncomfortable, unpredictable, and like Peter, we may be led to places that we don’t want to go.

As a committed follower of Christ we must remember that life is about faith and trust. It’s trusting God in every situation, and even sometimes, being led down a path where we don’t want to go. Be encouraged because God passionately loves you and He always has a purpose for everything He allows in your life.

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Be Still and I Will Part the Waters for You

“He your teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you. “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right of the left.” (Isaiah 30)

God still speaks to his children by the voice of the Holy Spirit. God speaks to us through a “still small voice” and most often through the Scriptures. Sometimes a biblical passage will be the key to our deliverance. Whether it’s through the Scriptures or that still small voice, before we can hear His voice of direction, God requires something of us: We are to stand still and wait for Him to act.

Stand still and wait for Him to act. This is one of those principles that make easy preaching but difficult to implement. Somehow we think that our experience qualifies us to go ahead of God. Besides, God needs our help doesn’t He? I don’t think so. If we take the sum total of all our good days, it would not equal one of God’s moments of genius. God’s timing and method is always the best for our life.

Joshua was one of the few Israelites who were able to enter the promise land. As Joshua was leading the Israelites across the Jordan River God was saying to them, ‘When you get to the water, plant your feet in the water and just stand there. Be still, rest. Just wait for me to act and I will part the waters for you.’

The Hebrew word for “stand still” means to,“stop all activity, cease all striving”. I am sure some of the men must have said, “Let’s build a quick bridge. With the amount of workers we have we can have a functional bridge in a few days”. Some of the women must have said, “I can’t let my children stand in the water, they might catch cold. “

But in spite of all of the suggestions, and the grumbling, Joshua led the people to obedience and they waited on God, did just as God told them, and the waters departed and they crossed over on dry land.

The problem isn’t that God is not speaking, but the problem is that we are not being still long enough to hear His voice. In other words, we lack the patience to wait, and lack the faith that God will answer.

What is God saying to us through this passage? Stop all activity, cease all striving. Be still, rest…just wait for me to act and I will part the waters for you!

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)