The Miracle of God's Love

Do you ever stop to marvel at God’s love?

With all the distractions in the world it is understandable—though a shame—when we neglect to take time every day to reflect on the miracle of God loving us. To think that the creator of the world hears us, knows the number of hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30), is truly astonishing. He sees the country-sized storms on Saturn, knows the density of every star in the heavens, and yet He bothers to call us by name and lead us through life's journey! We don’t seem to give Him enough credit these days. An almost blasphemous feeling that God somehow owes us has pervaded our social consciousness. But the simple truth is that God doesn’t owe us anything; we owe Him. If He should decide to forsake earth and go develop life forms on some unknown planet, He would not be acting outside His purview. But He has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us.

And think on this: when you pray you sometimes feel that God is not only hearing you, but that He is focusing on you, personally. This is truly astonishing when you consider that at the very moment you are having an intimate moment with Him, God is also simultaneously communing with thousands of other people, in equally personal moments, while also judging the earth, and rewarding the just in heaven! That the creator of the universe should take note of me at all provides me with a glimpse of His miraculous love. And so when He chooses to chastise me, I should not be angry or downcast, but rejoice that my heavenly Father cares enough to lead me in the way I should go. This is why the apostles, when they were being persecuted or in prison, rejoiced, counting themselves blessed.

‘Be still and know that He is God’ (Psalm 46:10). Stand in awe of Him, for He is an awesome God!

The Power of Prayer

In scripture all the great men and women of God displayed an affinity for prayer. They prayed not as a last resort, but as the first act of righteousness. They prayed to find guidance, they prayed for healing (and, believing, they often received it miraculously), and they prayed to bare their souls to God. These righteous men and women brought their anguish and sorrow and fears and repentance and fury to God in prayer.

Why did they do this? Why did they pray?
Today’s pastors would have you believe that the purpose of prayer is to change us into better versions of ourselves. But this is merely new thought ideology speaking.

In the bible prayer was used to change the world and to deepen our relationship with God. Prayer and supplication from His servant is pleasing to God. A man declaring himself powerful is repugnant to God: ‘God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble’ (1 Peter 5:5). Prayer is always an act of humility, the evidence of a humble heart. For it is only when a man humbles himself that he prays. This is why prayer has gone out of vogue, as a humble spirit is today considered a backwards thing.
When Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, did he declare ‘I am awesome, I am wonderful, I have power over these lions?’ No, he would’ve gotten eaten if he had said those things. Lions don’t cower before man—but they do answer to God. Though the book of Daniel doesn’t say Daniel prayed in the den, it does say that God sent His angel to protect Daniel, and elsewhere in the book we see Daniel praying, even though it was declared illegal.

What did Jonah do in the whale? Well, he probably panicked, but Jonah 2:1 tells us that he prayed. What of David? We still have record of dozens of his prayers, where he pours out his anguish, fear, and fury to God.

In the greatest example in scripture we see our own Savior praying. Jesus prayed often, alone and among people, He prayed earnestly, fervently, and always with belief that His Father would answer. He taught us to pray. He showed us how to pray.

Today it has gone out of vogue. This is a tragedy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Turn to God. Not just when times are hard, but always and with belief. Apart from God we can do nothing. The world is trying to convince us of the exact opposite. But we need God, everyday. Pray like your life and very soul depend on it—because they do. Prayer is vital to a believer’s life. Do you spend more time complaining than you do praying?

Go into your room, shut the door, switch off your devices, and pray. And then, be silent before God, and wait on Him.

The Christian Wears Christ

In a world of distractions it is easy for a Christian to forget to ‘put on Christ’ as Romans 13:14 says. To put on Christ means to live, breathe, and act as ambassadors of our Lord and Savior in this world. As we go about our business, we are called to remember that we are here to forge a righteous path, an honest, blameless method of living, so that everyone we interact with might see and learn and know Christ, or at least what it means for a soul to try and serve Him. To put on Christ is to make no provision for the flesh. The focus of our lives should not, therefore, be the accumulation of earthly treasures, the indulgence of fleshly desires (money, sex, popularity), but the service of our God: ‘to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself untainted from the world’ (James 1:27).
We are called to put our service to Him above all else. As the apostle Paul put it in Phil 1:21, ‘For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ Reflect for a moment on that statement. What love for our Savior, must Paul have had to devote himself—heart and soul—to the service of Christ? He knew what mattered in this world. He understood his calling. He understood that the purpose-driven life is not compelled to gather riches or to attend the most church seminars, or to feel great about your awesome self, but to humbly serve the One who saved us from ourselves. And he lived out this sort of life by ‘putting on Christ’.
We are so busy these days that we often forget what it is we should be doing, that the purpose of a Christian is to share the love of Christ, to promote the gospel of peace, to realize—and act on this realization—that the people we encounter each day are in desperate need of the Savior we are privileged to know, and called to share. So as you go about your business today, don’t forget to put on Christ.
God bless!

The Death of a Loved One

How do we keep our faith when God allows a loved one to die? How do we, as believers in a loving God, correlate our faith in the wake of a tragedy, especially when the death comes on swiftly or unexpectedly?

We must remember that, over the rest of the world, over those who walk in the darkness of unbelief, we alone can find comfort even in the face of great and terrible grief. First, if we know that our loved one walked with God, that he or she ‘fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith’ (2 Timothy 4:7) then we can know that they now walk with God in a place where they will never know suffering or emotional pain. This understanding often provides the only whiff of comfort those left behind can find. And though it is, perhaps, small comfort compared to the knowledge that we must somehow go on without them, it is a grace unbelievers do not have.
Second, we can search the scriptures and therein find that God always knows what he is doing. Even in tragedy, God’s will and plan are in effect. It rarely makes sense to us, why God would allow this tragedy. We might go on the rest of our lives without ever finding a logical human explanation for why dad had to die, for why mom was forced to endure that cancer before God took her. But God knows.

But God knows.

If we can accept that He knows why, then our understandable resentment (and perhaps even disappointment) of God will begin, with time, to diminish and we will find a peace that passes understanding, a peace that will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus during this crisis of faith, this time of bereavement (Philippians 4:7).

And know this: your loved one is rejoicing right now. This very minute. His or her suffering has ended and joys forevermore have begun. Cry for your great loss, but when you are done crying you can lift your eyes to the Maker and realize that, in time and if you continue to walk in the path of righteousness, you will see your beloved again, and all will be well in that day.
God be with your hearts. Amen.

The Potter and the Clay: God Has All Authority

After He had risen from the dead, Jesus approached His disciples and said to them: ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.’ Mathew 28:18
All authority. One of the most difficult aspects of our faith is accepting this truth. God has all authority . . . to run His creation as He sees fit, to make decisions according to His design and will, to take what already belongs to Him. Many good believers refuse to accept this. During good times they praise God, worship in church, and do good works. But when the bad times come, the truly life-altering times, these very same people refuse to accept this truth, that God has the authority, the right to do as He has done.
Our unwillingness to accept this truth is a roadblock to the development of our faith. When we choose to question God, the bonds of our relationship become strained. We cannot grow closer to God if we are questioning His actions, and in this we fail to increase in knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10). When this happens we cannot be productive servants to the kingdom. How can we lead others to trust and obedience and the joy of the Lord when we are questioning His will? It is understandable when a Christian wonders ‘Why’. It is not sinful to ask God why. But it is harmful.

This is where a humble servants’ heart comes into play in our faith. To hold a grudge against God, to resent Him and question Him for allowing terrible things to happen is to make war on Him. Romans 5:1 tells us: ‘Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Clearly then we show that we do not have peace with God when we question His decisions.
We would be wise to ask these questions: Doesn’t the creator of the universe have the right to decide how He runs things in His creation? Who am I to reply against God? Does not the potter have power over the clay? (Romans chapter 9).
It requires a deep level of Christian maturity to accept the fact that God knows what He is doing, even in the hard times, even when it makes no sense to us. Job understood this when he said ‘The Lord gives, the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord’. This degree of Christian maturity does not come easy, and indeed is rarely seen these days.
My grandfather, the humblest and most righteous man I have ever had the privilege of knowing, suffered through numerous physical ailments in addition to a descent into Alzheimer’s during the final years of his life. This made no sense to our limited human understanding. Why would a good God allow His faithful servant to suffer? What did it accomplish?
Maybe it was a process that prepared us to be able to help others later through similar struggles. Maybe grandpa touched someone’s life in that place and turned their heart to God when nothing else had worked through that person’s long life. We don’t know. But instead of making war on God, instead of questioning His wisdom, we, by His grace, choose to accept that He knew what He was doing. And so, by grace, we have peace with God. Philippians 2:29 offers this hard truth: ‘For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake.’ Remember that suffering produces in us perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is being poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us’ (Romans 5:4-5).   
There is no future in waging war on God. The creator of the universe has His reasons, and we can either question this divine being or we can take comfort in believing that He doesn’t think like us (Isaiah 55:9), that He has a plan and a reason for everything that He causes or allows to happen, even when it remains a complete and agonizing mystery to us. For great is His love for His people. When we question Him, we are saying ‘I think I know a better way for You to run Your creation’. This sort of arrogance puts up roadblocks between us, and can lead us astray, into the dark hopeless thought patterns of unbelievers.

God has the right. Let us accept this difficult truth and grow in knowledge of God, so that we might find comfort, joy, and peace in His divine design, for if these things be in us, we will be ready and able to share the Light of this world with others.