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Posts Tagged ‘God’

Knowing God (His love is amazing Part 1)

Posted in Attributes, Bible, Devotional, God, Jesus, John, Knowing God, Love, Lover of my soul, Relationship with God, Walking with God, tagged , , , , , on November 17, 2010|

When I think of God’s love for me (for us), I want to sing . . .  mostly because there are some great songs today about God’s love for us that capture some of the essence of it.

One song we sing at church and is on the radio has the refrain, “Amazing love, how can it be that my King would die for me?  Another has a repeating refrain, “He love us, oh how He loves us.”  The repetition of the phrase over and over starts to really speak of the limitlessness of God’s love.  Another song puts it this way, “Your love is amazing, steady and unchanging.  Your love is a mountain firm beneath my feet.”  I don’t think there is much better to sing about than the love of God for us and the manifestation of that love in the person and death of Jesus.

Of course, we learn of the great love of God for us (that causes us to sing) from the words of scripture:

  • For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  (John 3:16)
  • In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  in this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10)
  • For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  (Rom. 5:6)
  • But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (Rom. 5:8)
  • But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,  not of works, lest anyone should boast.  (Eph. 2:4-9)

This love is like an avalanche that crashes over us.  It is no small thing, this love of Jesus, to be discarded as mere philosophy or self-sacrifice of one good teacher.  No, this act of love is so great that mere words cannot describe it, songs only hint at it, and pictures fall short of portraying it.  This love is an endless sea into which we pitch ourselves in desperation when we have nothing else, and there we find our Savior-God, our Kinsman Redeemer, has provided us a great yacht on which to travel in safety under His direction to see the greatest wonders of the universe, a life filled with adventure and purposeful challenges to make us like Him.  What other lover offers so much and has the resources and desire to deliver and never take back what He has given.

This is God . . . these are the mere edges of His ways.

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Knowing God (He hears and delivers)

Posted in Attributes, Bible, Crying out to God, Devotional, God, In times of difficulty, Old Testament, Prophets, Psalms, Relationship with God, the LORD, Walking with God, tagged , , , , , , , on November 15, 2010|

David tells us of his relationship with the LORD, I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.  Psalm 34:4.  The things we learn about God from this verse are

  • God hears
  • God responds when He hears
  • God delivers us from ALL of our fears

One of the reasons God hears us is because He stays near to us.  God tells us in Jer 23:23, “Am I a God near at hand . . . and not a God afar off?”

Not only does God hear us, but He then does not leave us where we were.  God tells us, through the prophet Jeremiah, “Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.  Jer. 33:3.  Some people like to say that this is God’s telephone number.

In Psalm 40:1-2, we read the Psalmist saying, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry.  He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.”    We learns some additional things from this verse including:

  • I may have to wait for God (I should do so patiently)
  • God moves closer to me to hear me and is not unmoved by my cries
  • God delivers me from the places that I have allowed myself to fall
  • God puts me on a firm spot, a rock (Jesus is the Rock)
  • God gets me started on my way and makes paths for me to walk in

In thinking over the scriptures that I wanted to use for this post, I realized that the God who hears makes the best deliverer.  The last thing you want in your time of trouble when you are calling out to God is a God who has a hearing impairment.   On the other side of the coin, having a God who hears well, but ignores me or makes my deliverance a low priority on His list is also distressing.  Praise God that He hears well, sees well and desires to deliver me out of my trouble and calamity.   Blessed be the name of the LORD!

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Knowing God (“Let there be light!”)

Posted in Attributes, Bible, God, Knowing God, Light, Walking with God, tagged , , , , , on October 31, 2010|

In the last post, I looked at the attribute of God as Elohim, the creator.  This time, I will explore God as the Light of the World and having the power to speak light into circumstances and lives.

Genesis 1:2-3 tells us “the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” The amazing truth of this verse is that God merely spoke and light entered where no light had been before.

I have experienced God’s power to speak light personally.  My life without God was without form, void, and darkness enveloped me.  God, however, was not far from me.  You might say He was hovering close to me.  One day, God said, “Let there be light” in my life, and there was light – the Light of the World.   That light now shines forth through my life (not unlike light  from a candle placed in a cracked pot), illuminating the darkness in my heart and the darkness of the world in which I live.

Jesus came to “give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  Luke 1:79 Without a relationship with God, we are all sitting in darkness and the shadow of death (spiritual death).  When God speaks light into a life and converts a soul, He dispels the darkness and light floods that life, that heart, that soul.

Jesus said of Himself,  “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”  John 8:12  Sadly, not everyone loves the light.  According to Jesus,  men are condemned because “light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil [and] everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”  John 3:19-20  It is no wonder that bars, nightclubs and similar places are all dimly lit.

Take heart, because for the overcomer, the one who lives and dies for Christ, John tells us the following about our future with God, “There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.”  Rev. 22:5

May the Light of the World shine forth His light in your life.  May He chase the darkness away permanently and use you to bring light to a dying world submerged in darkness.

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One Thing

Posted in God, Relationship with God, Walking with God, tagged , , , on October 19, 2010| 5 Comments »

What if you were asked to share one thing that you have learned in your relationship with God that you feel is most important for a person trying to improve their relationship with God, what would you answer?

The one thing should be something that is first – something a person must understand about God  before all other things in order that the other things would have importance and significance.

The one thing should be easy to establish and show through Bible passages.

One would think that such an important concept would be mentioned throughout the Bible, multiple times by different authors in both the New and Old Testament.

Leave me a comment let me know what that one thing is for you.

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Prayer – The Basics

Posted in Prayer, Relationship with God, tagged , , on September 20, 2010|

I grew up with faith in God.  It was not always a saving faith, but I believed in God and knew that when you had a problem (or a complaint), it was to God one should turn.  My father died when I was 3 years old, and some of the adults in my life told me that my prayers were essential to my father getting to heaven.  As a three-year-old, I was motivated to pray.  After all,  if my father wasn’t going to be with me and my family, he needed to be with God.   I knew, instinctively, what to ask for,  I knew who to ask, and I knew why I could expect answers.

I needed my dad to be with God, I believed that God was able to meet my need, and I knew He had the power because He was God.

I agree it wasn’t a sophisticated theology, but it got me on my knees.  I remember praying at night and sometimes in the back of a church and asking God to make sure my dad made it to heaven.  I didn’t doubt.   I didn’t try to contact a back up provider.  I asked, believing and knowing the nature and authority of Him in whom I believed.  These are the essentials of prayer:

Ask believing that the one who is God (and therefore completely able) will answer.

It specifically excludes:

  • Prayers of those who don’t believe in God
  • Prayers of those who doubt God’s willingness to answer
  • Prayers of those who don’t trust in God
  • Rote prayers which lack a revelation of the individual heart and need required for relationship with God

I am a little older now, and I am committed to serving God and allowing Him to be the authority in my life.  I still pray to God believing that He will answer because I know that He is all-suffcicent and all powerful, and He alone is God and there is no other.  I know from my experience in prayer that I may not always like His answer initially, but I know He hears and answers my prayers according to what is best for me.

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INDEPENDENT NO MORE (Part 1)

Posted in Dependence on God, Devotional, God, Relationship with God, tagged , , , , , on August 27, 2010| 2 Comments »

Putting aside self-sufficiency for good

According to C. Hummel in Tyranny of the Urgent, “The root of all sin is self-sufficiency,  independence from the rule of God.  When we fail to wait prayerfully for God’s guidance and strength, we are saying with our actions, if not with our words, that we do not need Him.”

DEPENDENCE

According to 2 Corinthians 12:9, the Lord told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”  The message is clearly, “Be as weak as possible, and I will make known my strength through you.”

We (mankind), were designed to depend.  If you go back to the garden, God’s design was that mankind should live his life forever (remember they were not prohibited from the Tree of Life) in fellowship with God.  He desired not that man rely on his own wisdom or knowledge of good and evil, but that man would make his decisions based on his close fellowship with God.  Several possible explanations for God’s design come to mind:

  • It could be that God knew that a moral standard of good and evil, right and wrong, would not be sufficient for us.  We, apart from fellowship with God, would choose evil over good.  It could be that God, for His sheer delight, desired to impart His wisdom and guidance to us, one by one and day by day.  The picture is one of a loving and involved father teaching and guiding a beloved son or daughter.
  • It could also be that God knew that we cannot keep very many rules or guidelines on our own without encouragement and reminder.
  • It could be He knew that our greatest need is the constant unconditional love of our Father.  It is the fuel for our human souls.  It is what keeps us healthy and able to move forward.
  • It could be that these reasons and purposes are only known to the Almighty.  In any event, a life of unbroken fellowship with the Father was God’s first choice for us.
It was a grasp at self-dependence that severed that fellowship in the garden of Eden more than 6,000 years ago.  You know the story.  Eve was deceived by the serpent.  She fell prey to two of his well-worn strategies:
  1. First, she was not clear on what God had said, so she was easily deceived by the serpent’s misrepresentation of God’s word.
  2. Second, she was lured into believing the lies of the serpent because of her desire to be independent of God (to be like a god herself).

    3. THE BAD NEWS . . . The root of all independence is that same desire in each of us. The consequence of Eve’s grab for independence was separation from God for herself and her family.

    THE GOOD NEWS . . . The cross is the provision for restored fellowship and dependence on God.  God has made a way to restore what was lost in the garden.  Hallelujah!

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Lessons from the Book of Job (Part 2)

Posted in Bible, Bible Study, Books of the Bible, God, Job, Old Testament, tagged , , , on August 16, 2010|

As I read the book of Job each year, Job reminds me about my God, why He is worthy, oh so worthy to be served.

  • Everything under heaven is His.  He even sets limits for Satan.
  • He controls all of nature – that which is above and that which is below.
  • None came before Him, and He has no end, so it is not possible that any will come after Him.
  • Whatever He wills – that shall be done.  None can resist or successfully oppose Him.  None of His purposes can be thwarted.
  • In His presence, I see the wretch that I am, hopelessly self-focused and self-seeking, lacking in power and sufficiency, totally dependent on my God.

Although He might despise me for my inadequacies, my frailties, my pathetic efforts to be independent, He doesn’t. Instead He extends His loving arms to hold and comfort me.  He washes me in His blood, and I am clean.

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Lessons from the Book of Job

Posted in Bible, Bible Basics, Bible Study, Books of the Bible, Devotional, God, Job, Old Testament, tagged , , , , on August 13, 2010|

The benefit of reading through the Bible each year from cover to cover is that every year, you must read the book of Job.  It is 37 chapters of men’s wisdom followed by 5 chapters of God’s.

When I read Job, I learn things about myself:

  • I am like Job’s friends, spending too much time trying to figure why another person faces severe or repeated suffering and trials.  I look for hidden sin in their lives.  I usually fail to consider the universal truth that God’s ways are far past my finding out or understanding.  How can finite man understand infinite God?
  • I am like Job.  I tend to think God is dealing unjustly with me.  I accuse God of being far from me, not remembering me, or forsaking me.  I am prone to think of God as a mere man, like me, capable of error, neglect, thoughtlessness.  I imagine He might need my insight, my vision, or my plans.
  • I am so relieved to hear from God.  After 37 chapters of the ramblings of those not much brighter than me, when I read the words, “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind,” it makes my heart quicken.  His truth washes over me, verse after verse confronting me with my impotency and my insignificance in stark contrast to His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence.

Like Job, my only response to the awesome power and knowledge of God is to mumble with my face in dirt, “I am vile . . . I have nothing to say.”

More on Job tomorrow . . .

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Stop and Smell the Roses

Posted in God, Relationship with God, worship, tagged , , , on July 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

It may seem a little odd for me to wax poetic given my usual steady fare of Bible studies and such, but I have found myself of late just thinking about my God and how sweet He is to me.

My God has delivered me from the battle and set me in a quiet meadow with sweet-smelling flowers (actually it is a 1/2 vegetable/ 1/2 flower garden in Southern California, but stay with me here).

He has led me beside clear waters that allow me to reflect on who I was, who I have become through my recent trials and who He would have me be and how He would shape me into that person (This, of course, means more trials).

He has given me to a godly husband and a child that desires to do well with the LORD.

He has set me in the company of quality women of faith to encourage and sharpen me.

He has given me the desires of my heart as best I have been able to figure them.

He has never left me or forsook me (not that I didn’t give Him plenty of reason), and His mercies are new every morning.  I get to wake up a daughter of the King and go to sleep in the shadow of the wings of the Most High God.

This is living!

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Psalm 84 – A Closer Look (Part 2)

Posted in Devotional, God, Pilgrimage, Psalms, tagged , , , , on June 1, 2010| 1 Comment »

Psalm 84, verse 5 says, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage.” We looked at the first part of verse 5 of Psalm 84 in the last post.  We examined what it means for a man’s strength to be in God.   The second part of the verse is really the part that drew my attention as I was reading.  I began to think about what it means for one’s heart to be set on pilgrimage.

Usually, my heart is set on permanence.  I want to have a home, “to put down roots” in a community, to be part of something.   At first glance, permanence seems to be the opposite of what the “blessed man” seeks after.  That led me to explore the term “pilgrimage”.

“Pilgrimage” according to the dictionary is “a journey, especially a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion” or “any long journey, especially one undertaken as a quest or for a votive (dedicated in accordance with a vow) purpose, as to pay homage.”

The word “pilgrimage” packs a lot of meaning:

  • It is a type of long journey
  • Destination is a sacred place
  • Purpose is to show religious devotion or to honor a vow (to God)

What does the Psalmist mean when he uses “pilgrimage’ here?

  • What is the long journey?    Is he talking about a life lived walking daily with God, what Enoch, Abraham or Paul had?  Is this a journey that is never complete this side of eternity?
  • What is the sacred place to which the man is traveling or journeying?    Is it Heaven?  Eternal Life with God?
  • What is the devotion or vow which the man is to show by the journey?  Is it simply devotion to God?  Is it the promise to take up the cross of Jesus and follow after Him?

I think this idea of a heart set on pilgrimage requires more consideration and mediation.  I know that it speaks to traveling light and not being at home here in the world.  One who is on a pilgrimage has his primary focus on the object of his devotion.  As I live my life, my pilgrimage, I need to keep my primary focus on God, the object of my devotion, the one to whom I made the vow to be a bond servant.

I invite you to share any additional thoughts you might have regarding what it means to have your heart set on pilgrimage.  The blog is a two-way communication.  Send me a post!

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