Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Friday, February 1, 2013
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Thankfulness
I know Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is only 6 days away, but I'm inclined to argue this is a more important time to reflect on what we're thankful for. And, this is one of the most recent things Jesus is teaching me about how to follow Him and how being thankful effects the condition of my heart (doesn't everything).
It's always funny to me that I can tell my wife something "profound" which, at the time, I think is helpful to her, then the next day I end up sitting across from someone listening to the exact words I said to her. That happens far more than I can count. After my conversation with the someone, a line from a song by the band Waterdeep began resonating in my heart. It goes, "A thankful heart prepares the way, for you my God." I've been rolling it around for a couple weeks now and though I don't actually get it, I get it. The sad part is I've always "gotten" the concept in my head, but haven't embraced it with my heart... (Read FULL POST)
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Praise Him in the Storm? How?
~1 Thessalonians 5:16-18~
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
~Philippians 4:6~
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Can I be honest with you? For me, those above verses are some of the HARDEST in the bible. They're the hardest because of those words I highlighted and bolded. Those verses tell me I'm supposed to ALWAYS rejoice (or praise God) and ALWAYS give thanks, no matter what is going on in my life. What? How?
It Seems Impossible
How do I praise Him in those times when I feel alone, or angry or sad? How do I praise Him and give thanks to Him in the midst of a storm, when all I know to do during a storm is run for cover? I WANT to praise Him. I know it's good and needed and refreshing. I WANT to delight in Him. But how, when your in a place of despair, do you rejoice? How are you supposed to be thankful when all you want to do is break down, cry your heart out and run for it?
I suppose if you're a "good" Christian, you "just give it to Jesus". I've been directed that way many times by Christians that either don't want to give their time or don't know what else to say. You know how I know it's one of those two things? Because, when I ask them how to do that, the answer is always, "You just do. Pray about it." "Just give it to Jesus" is the Christianeze cure all. It gets you out of being involved in what a Christian brother or sister is going through. Ftr, I'm fully aware giving our problems and sorrows to Jesus is biblical, but it isn't meant to be used to brush the hurting away. It's meant to provide hope.
But I digress, how do we praise and give thanks in everything, especially when we don't "feel" it or everything in our heart cries out hurt. I know first hand the difficulty in praising and being thankful in the midst of despair. So what do we do? Or rather, what do I do?
Run For It!!!
When the storm comes it's natural and necessary to run for refuge and cover. So in our daily life, when the storm is laying waste to us, with full force, don't try to be Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump. We're not meant to "weather the storm". Ultimately we're fragile and dependent on Him, so run to Him for refuge. Psalm 91:9 & 10 say,
If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
That's not saying storms will never come. On the contrary, if there were no storms, we wouldn't need refuge. And I know that's just as abstract an idea as "just give it to Jesus". Here's what I've found taking refuge in Him looks like to me (I'm certain I'm not the only one either). We take refuge in Him by taking refuge in the truth of His Word. Since Jesus is The Word, when you take refuge in the truth of His Word, you're taking refuge in Him. For me, that means verbalizing scriptural truths about who He is. Things that remind me He IS love, He IS good, He is FOR me, He will NEVER leave or forsake me. Even when I am not able or don't feel it would be genuine for me to lift up a "joyful" heart, I can get in His word and recite some very specific truths about Him. I think that pleases Him. When our heart feels alone and desperate for relief, simply calling out those truths can bring comfort and prepares the way for God to make His presence known and comfort you. I love the way the AMP translation addresses Job 22:21. It says, 21 Acquaint now yourself with Him [agree with God and show yourself to be conformed to His will] and be at peace; by that [you shall prosper and great] good shall come to you. We acquaint ourselves with Him by knowing what His Word declares
Here's a couple verses I typically declare:
Bruce
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
He's the Same!
Last week I was in a class and there was some scripture that was presented. One was from the the Koran and the other was from the Old Testament of the Bible. The question was presented as to whether they were scripture from the same God. The argument was that the verse from the Koran was very similar in feeling as many Old Testament Bible verses. The verse from the Koran spoke of the wrath of God being poured out and read something like Jeremiah 25:31 which says,
The Old Testament verse is unimportant, except that it dealt with God's love. The comment was made about the belief that the Old Testament is the portrayal of God's wrath, anger and justice and the New Testament is the portrayal of God's love and mercy. First let me put out there that the God of the Bible and the God of any other religion are not the same. Without accepting Jesus Christ as God, it cannot be God. With that said, I get so frustrated with the theory that the Old Testament holds one half God's character and the New Testament hold the other half. If you read the Bible, I mean really seek God in it, you cannot miss the fact that God is the same from Genesis to Revelation.
Yes the Old Testament is a reflection of God's wrath, justice and anger, but it is also riddled with God's true desire to be Israel's God and to pour out His love and mercy on them. So many times throughout the OT God pleads with His people to return to Him, so many times He promises to restore them, so many times He gives them the chance to turn from their evil ways. So many times He says stuff like “I - yes, I alone - will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.” Isaiah 43:25 or “And you will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago. You will be my people, and I will be your God.” Ezekiel 36:28. These are undoubtedly signs of God's love and mercy.
On the other side of that, the NT is a reflection of God's love and mercy, but the NT also holds the greatest display of God's wrath and justice. Read about the crucifixion in any of the four Gospels (Matt 27:34-44, Mark 15:21-32, Luke 23:26-43 or John 19:16b-27), and you'll see God's wrath poured out. But you'll notice that His wrath was not poured out on His people. Instead it was poured out on His son, Jesus Christ. Romans 3:24-26 says,
Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
Here's the bottom line...the OT and NT are not two halves of the same God. God is unchanging throughout the Bible. He continually displays a desire to love and restore us to Him, and yes some times that means He disciplined His people (sometimes pretty harshly), and He still does today. But the difference is this, He saved up His greatest outpouring of wrath and justice for that moment when His son hung on that cross, beaten, bruised and broken. He withheld the full force of His wrath from us, knowing we were not capable of baring it and instead poured it out on the most precious part of Himself. And He did it for no other reason than because He loves us. That's it...He Love Us!
Knowing He's the Same,
Bruce
“His cry of judgment will reach the ends of the earth, for the Lord will bring his case against all the nations. He will judge all the people of the earth, slaughtering the wicked with the sword. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
The Old Testament verse is unimportant, except that it dealt with God's love. The comment was made about the belief that the Old Testament is the portrayal of God's wrath, anger and justice and the New Testament is the portrayal of God's love and mercy. First let me put out there that the God of the Bible and the God of any other religion are not the same. Without accepting Jesus Christ as God, it cannot be God. With that said, I get so frustrated with the theory that the Old Testament holds one half God's character and the New Testament hold the other half. If you read the Bible, I mean really seek God in it, you cannot miss the fact that God is the same from Genesis to Revelation.
Yes the Old Testament is a reflection of God's wrath, justice and anger, but it is also riddled with God's true desire to be Israel's God and to pour out His love and mercy on them. So many times throughout the OT God pleads with His people to return to Him, so many times He promises to restore them, so many times He gives them the chance to turn from their evil ways. So many times He says stuff like “I - yes, I alone - will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.” Isaiah 43:25 or “And you will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago. You will be my people, and I will be your God.” Ezekiel 36:28. These are undoubtedly signs of God's love and mercy.
On the other side of that, the NT is a reflection of God's love and mercy, but the NT also holds the greatest display of God's wrath and justice. Read about the crucifixion in any of the four Gospels (Matt 27:34-44, Mark 15:21-32, Luke 23:26-43 or John 19:16b-27), and you'll see God's wrath poured out. But you'll notice that His wrath was not poured out on His people. Instead it was poured out on His son, Jesus Christ. Romans 3:24-26 says,
Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
Here's the bottom line...the OT and NT are not two halves of the same God. God is unchanging throughout the Bible. He continually displays a desire to love and restore us to Him, and yes some times that means He disciplined His people (sometimes pretty harshly), and He still does today. But the difference is this, He saved up His greatest outpouring of wrath and justice for that moment when His son hung on that cross, beaten, bruised and broken. He withheld the full force of His wrath from us, knowing we were not capable of baring it and instead poured it out on the most precious part of Himself. And He did it for no other reason than because He loves us. That's it...He Love Us!
Knowing He's the Same,
Bruce
Monday, April 20, 2009
I Just Gotta Say...
This may actually be my shortest post, so hold on to your socks.
I just gotta say that it is amazing what God can do in your life if you let him. To think that throughout my life I have gone through so much and never really trusted in God to make me or the situation better. I really can't say if it was where I was at in life, how bad things got, the environment I was in, the group of people I was around (I could go on), that changed my perspective on God. Maybe it was all of it. The point is, something happened in the way I trusted God. It wasn't all at once, it was slow for sure, but I think I just got tired of trying to do it myself. Maybe it was more than that. Maybe God had been working on me this last 20 years and had me just where I needed to be.
I don't believe that it was part of God's master plan for Dana to leave, but I think whether I acknowledged him at the time or not, every time something happened, God was doing something in my heart. At the end He had finally gotten me to where he needed me to be on Jan 14, 2009 to accept His will for my life. Pastor Steven Furtick (Lead Pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina) posted a blog that really got me thinking about the growing through trials thing (can read it HERE). Basically, his thought for the day was: "Deep crap=Green grass" or put another way "The more crap we go through, the more we grow". Very eloquently put and probably couldn't be explained any other way.
I have definitely grown over the past 7 months. In that I have gained a new found love in my Lord Jesus Christ, a new and revitalized relationship with my sons, a new purpose for my life and a group of friends and family that I couldn't imagine being without. I am truly humbled and awed by the goodness, grace, greatness and love of our God.
Humbled by His grace,
Bruce
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