Archive for the ‘ God ’ Category
“Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.”
Jeremiah 32:17, NKJV
Why do we struggle to trust God?
If He can create literally everything, and He is able to raise people from the dead, walk on water, and make a few loaves and fish feed thousands, surely He can handle each of our situations in life.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
Psalm 33:18, ESV
Our God is always watching over us. Remember, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
“There is none holy like the Lord : for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.”
1 Samuel 2:2, ESV
God is set apart from all other creatures and things. None is like Him.
Likewise, though He is completely apart from us, He is ever present and near, holding us and supporting us. All creatures and all things (Hebrews 1:3).
“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
Exodus 14:14, ESV
Remember that vengeance belongs to the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35), so do not retaliate in any way. Hold your tongue and hold back your hand.
In fact, turn the other cheek and forgive.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7, ESV
It is impossible to combat and defeat Satan apart from God. Continually drawing near to God is from where any power in our life comes.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
Titus 2:11-12, ESV
In a western society, it is incredibly easy to give in to our passions and follow the world’s example.
That means it is hard to live rightly.
Praise God that He sent His Son to show us grace, and they sent the Spirit to strengthen us!
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2, ESV
Do not be confused. Jesus was not happy to die, but He was willing to endure anything for what was on the other side: eternal life with His forgiven adopted brothers and sisters, to the glory of the Father through the Holy Spirit who draws us in guides us to that perfection of faith.
The holy God of Israel, the Lord who saves you, says: “I am the Lord your God, the one who wants to teach you for your own good and direct you in the way you should go.
Isaiah 48:17, GNT
We humans are very fickle, wanting to be right and assuming we know better than everyone else.
God is God, and we need to let Him teach us “for [our] own good”.
Today is my 18th Re-Birthday! [For more details, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Yep. 18 years ago today I succumbed to Jesus’ bear hug of forgiveness and grace. My faith is now legally an adult in most of the world.
Do I feel accomplished?
Honestly, I will always know there is more to do until the day I no longer need to number my days (Psalm 90:12), for The Wisdom of God made flesh has been made fully known to His Creation.
Rather, I am beginning to feel the pressure of time. I was a teenager when entering the Christian fold, so I am only in my mid-30s. However, the Lord has been teaching me to number my days (ask those who know me best! There are stories!), so I can see “missed opportunities” and periods of disobedience in my past. I see faces of people I could have been “That person” to.
Yet, these should not be seen as regrets … at least of I truly believe my sovereign Lord truly is sovereign. Rather, these are moments to glean from and push forward.
I think Paul put it best.
. . . and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
Philippians 3:9-16, ESV
Therefore, I finish as I have in the past:
. . . by quoting Jude (3):
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
Let us celebrate our common salvation and share this faith with our fallen world!
Many today are commenting on Martin Luther, the other Reformers, the Reformation in general, or something along those lines.
Those are very important, and I will undoubtedly share something in the future.
You see, we met ten years ago on this day. And what she did not know that day ten years ago was that I had a list of things God and I worked out to find my future wife. (She learned of the list just a few weeks later, but she has not seen/heard the entire list … until today!)
The incredibly shortened, Readers-Digest-version of the story is this:
On the Ides of March of 2007, I ended a previous engagement. I had come to realize that we were not as compatible with each other as we could be, and there were many factors in play in that decision, including a deviation from biblical standards of relationships, if you dig.
A mere two weeks after that, I was ready to simply swear off marriage to “be as I am,” according to Paul (1 Corinthians 7:7). Instead, I was led to create a list of attributes to confirm a particular woman was my wife.
Then, ten years ago today, my life was reformed when I met my wife.
Interestingly, we half-met when I was having a civil debate with an unorthodox Jew about the anti-Semitic writings of Martin Luther … and then fully met on the way to a Campus Crusade for Christ costume party, at which we shared her costume. (Hence our dressing up in matching costumes each year.)
Anyway, without further ado, here are my 17 Theses of my Relational Reformation (first the more fleshly, then the more godly, but I will leave much of the fulfillment of these between the two of us for now!):
It literally took 17 days for her to fulfill everything on this list. Not one every day, as we did not see each other every single day, but on November 16, she only had (from my perspective) two more to meet … the last two … and that morning she met them.
It has been a great 10 years! Not always easy. Not always the best. But God brought us together and has brought us through thus far.
Now, I only pray our relationship with each other continues to bless and inspire others to seek God and godly relationships.
May His purity, light, and mercy continue to shine through us!*
(*sidenote: this sentence is a pun on her full name!)
a simple man of God 